The most pressing problem facing the Angolan justice system was a severe lack of resources, the International Bar Association (IBA) said yesterday.

"The severe lack of resources (especially in the rural areas) does not augur well for the Angolan justice system," said South African judge Kenneth Mthiyane at a media briefing in Johannesburg.

Mthiyane toured Angola in April this year on an IBA fact-finding mission.

He added that it appeared the Angolans were "trying their best".

Mthiyane said the holes in the Angolan justice system had been blasted by almost 30 years of civil war, preceded by the departure of the Portuguese colonial government in 1975.

No study of Angola could be done without taking this into account.

"In 1975 most of the judges were part of the colonial powers who left. Many of the local judges also left for greener pastures. They left a huge void".

Another key concern was the slow movement of accused people through the legal system.

Between 60% and 80% of all detainees were pre-trial detainees, said the IBA's Christian Ahlund.

Pre-trial detention of two or three years was not unusual.

He said Angola had a bad record when it came to complying with the rule of habeas corpus (bringing accused people before the courts timeously).

Ahlund said the principle was entrenched in Angola's Constitution, and Mthiyane said the situation was exacerbated by a lack of courts - there were 168 courts for a population of 12-million.

Only 23 of these courts are actually operational.

While the principle of habeas corpus was in the Constitution, Trikamjee said the Constitution had not yet been implemented, and there was no time limit set for this.

A third major concern was the independence of the judiciary and, more especially, the attorney general's ability to overturn some judicial decisions.

"We were uneasy about this," said Mthiyane, "Detainees rely on judges to act as a buffer between them and the state".

He said the Angolans had said that this unusual system had been inherited from the Portuguese and the status quo would remain until the Constitution was in place.

In general those spoken to believed Angolan judges were independent, but that this independence could be strengthened.

When the delegation went to Angola from April 11 to 19 this year they spent their time in Luanda, speaking to members of the Angolan Bar Association, the government, the judicial authorities, the police, United Nations representatives and those from non-governmental organisations and Angola's law school.

They, however, had to rely on these people's "say-so" on the situation in the rural areas.

One of the problems was that there was a paucity of legal expertise in the rural areas, with some areas having not one lawyer.

Ahlund said the IBA felt it was imperative that legal aid programmes were run in these areas and that working in the rural areas was made more attractive.

"We are ready to help," he said.

Asked whether they had had a positive response from the Angolan government, Trikamjee said Mthiyane and Ahlund would be meeting with the Angolan government on Thursday to discuss the situation and an answer could be given then.

Earlier Mthiyane had also highlighted corruption as a problem facing the Angolan government, which had set up an Accounting Court to deal with government tenders above a certain sum.

Ahlund explained that the term "court" was possibly misleading as the Accounting Court was not a judicial body, but was staffed by judges and qualified accountants who perused tenders in search of misuse of public funds. The court had thus far made one ruling. – Sapa.