O processo de constitucionalização dos estados africanos de expressão portuguesa: caminho para um pluralismo jurídico de procedimento

Abstract

African states have the peculiarity of having culturally heterogeneous characteristics, which ends up having a direct impact on the composition of their legais systems, which comprise the same hybrid structure. With the colonial process, common law and civil law legal families were introduced in Africa, which were maintained in the post-independence period, thus resulting in an intersystemic conflict between positivist state law and African rights - and, in some states, Islamic law (Sharia). Faced with this truculent relationship, this research proposes, firstly, recognising procedural and procedural legal pluralism, in order to ease this conflict between the two orders, in which positive law claims to be hegemonic and monistic, limiting the manifestations of customary rights. It should be noted beforehand that this research is particularly focused on Portuguese-speaking African countries, whose legal constitution formally recognises legal pluralism, but from a purely substantive perspective, i.e. without clear methods for making legal pluralism effective, either in the institutional sphere or in the procedural dimension, capable of integrating community courts and traditional authorities in a functionally dialogical and plural environment. In addition, the research sought to analyse the way in which community courts that express the concrete manifestation of legal pluralism operate, having analysed countries such as Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and, in a modest way, Angola. The advantages of community courts for access to justice were described, as well as their inherent limitations with regard to certain fundamental rights and guarantees that are at risk of being violated, such as due process, denial of formal equality for women and children's rights. To this end, the possibility of supervising these courts and involving professional judges in cases of great magnitude was proposed. It is worth mentioning that the post-positivist paradigm was brought into the discussion as a mechanism for overcoming pure positivism, admitting a correction of the law by morality, in the sense proposed by Robert Alexy (2009) and with argumentative nuances compatible with the African reality, presented in the third chapter in which the issue of the crisis of positivism on the African continent is discussed. It should also be noted that this work includes an argument for the possibility of constitutionalising Ubuntu as a constitutional principle, part of African rights, constituting a mechanism for the incorporation and plural codification of African values into state norms. In addition to what has already been said, the issue of the effectiveness of fundamental rights, especially women's rights, was analysed, highlighting the viability of a feminist constitutionalism that strives for gender justice in Africa, especially on issues concerning reproductive rights and access to the same opportunities. Finally, the model of constitutional courts and their role in guaranteeing and promoting fundamental rights were described.