“Yes, it is indeed a serious matter. Exactly for this reason this commission was created, it is because it realized the existence of a phenomenon of excessive pre-trial detention across the country and one of the ways to mitigate it is exactly the creation of a working group”, he told journalists. secretary of the Ad-Hoc Commission for Analysis of Excessive Preventive Detention, Alves Renné.
Created in December 2020, the Commission was chaired by the judge advisor president of the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court, Daniel Modesto Geraldes, took stock of the work for the year 2023 and defined the work strategy for 2024.
Speaking to journalists, at the end of the meeting that took place in Luanda, Alves Renné explained that the commission technically processes the data, presented by the penitentiary service, and according to the nature or phase in which it is found, it is processed case by case.
The actions carried out by the commission have contributed to reducing the numbers presented, he added, although without detailing, the result of the visits that each member of the commission carries out to the penitentiary services.
“Because the defendants claim to be in excess of pre-trial detention, or for some other reason they feel they are in excess of pre-trial detention, but technically we are seeing that sometimes these are other cases, they are defendants against whom several cases are pending”, he explained.
Asked about the results of the work that the commission has carried out since 2020, the person in charge noted that at the level of the Angolan penitentiary service there are no longer cases of defendants being deprived of their freedom after serving their sentence.
“We can say with some certainty that these cases no longer exist”, he assured.
Regarding cases specifically of excessive pre-trial detention, “we can say that the balance is extremely positive, not only due to the existence of the commission, which does this technical work of purifying the data, but also due to the impact that this causes on the inmates themselves”, concluded Alves Renne.
The secretary of the Ad-Hoc Commission said that it works to stop the excess of preventive detention in the country, “a distortion of the system”, situations that occur “when for some reason, and these are varied, the defendants who should remain within the limit that the law establishes end up staying longer”.
The data is brought to the commission by the penitentiary service, which is the body that holds the defendants in its power to comply with precautionary measures, data “then processed technically by the commission which, according to the nature or phase in which the process is at, verifies if on a case-by-case basis to debug,” he explained.
The commission includes representatives from the Attorney General's Office, the Angolan Bar Association, the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, the Ombudsman's Office and Penitentiary Services.
