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Angola Judicial System
The Ministry of Justice oversaw the nation's court
system,
which comprised the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals,
people's
revolutionary courts, and a system of people's courts.
High-level
judges were appointed by the minister of justice. The
Supreme Court
and the Court of Appeals heard cases involving national
officials
and appeals from lower courts. People's revolutionary
courts heard
accusations related to national security, mercenary
activity, or
war crimes. They presided over both military and civilian
cases,
with senior military officers serving in a judicial
capacity in
military cases
(see Conditions of Service, Ranks, and Military Justice
, ch. 5). Appeals were heard by appellate courts in
each
provincial capital.
People's courts were established in the late 1970s by
the
National Court Administration of the Ministry of Justice
as part of
a nationwide reorganization along Marxist-Leninist lines.
The
people's court system comprised criminal, police, and
labor
tribunals in each provincial capital and in a few other
towns. The
MPLA-PT Political Bureau appointed three judges--one
professional
and two lay magistrates--to preside over each people's
courtroom
and assigned them equal power and legal standing. Although
the
professional judges had substantial legal training, lay
judges were
appointed on a rotating basis from among a group of
citizens who
had some formal education and several weeks' introductory
legal
training. Some were respected leaders of local ethnic
groups. No
juries were empaneled in either civil or criminal cases,
but judges
sometimes sought the opinion of local residents in
weighing
decisions.
Data as of February 1989
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