Article 22
(Access to justice)
1. Everyone shall be guaranteed the right of access to justice and to receive, within a reasonable timeframe and through a fair trial, safeguard of his or her legally protected rights or interests.
2. Everyone shall be granted, personally or through associations of defense of the interests involved, the right to promote the prevention, termination or judicial prosecution of offenses against health, the environment, quality of life and cultural heritage.
3. Everyone shall have the right of defense, as well as to legal information, to legal representation and to be accompanied by an attorney before any authority, under the terms of the law.
4. Justice may not be denied because of an insufficiency of economic means or undue delay of a ruling.
5. The law shall define and ensure adequate protection of judicial secrecy.
6. To defend the individual rights, freedoms and guarantees, the law provides for swift and priority legal proceedings that ensure the effective and timely safeguard against any threats or violations of said rights, freedoms and guarantees.
Article 28
(Right to life and to physical and moral integrity)
1. Human life and the physical and moral integrity of the human person shall be inviolable.
2. No one may be subjected to torture, punishments or treatments that are cruel, degrading or inhumane, and under no circumstance whatsoever shall there be a death penalty.
Article 30
(Right to freedom and personal security)
1. Everyone shall have the right to freedom and personal security.
2. No one may be deprived, in whole or in part, of his or her freedom, not as a result of condemnatory judgment for committing acts legally punishable by imprisonment or by judicial imposition of security measures foreseen in the law.
Article 30
(Right to freedom and personal security)
4. Any detained or arrested person must be informed immediately, in an unequivocal and understandable manner, of the reasons for his or her detention or arrest and of his or her constitutional and legal rights, and shall be authorized to contact an attorney, directly or through his or her own family or a person whom he or she trusts .
Article 35
(Principles of criminal penal procedures)
1. Every indicted person shall be presumed innocent until he or she is proven guilty and must be tried in the shortest time compatible with defense guarantees.
2. A detained person or a person who has been charged may not be compelled to give statements about the facts alleged against him or her.
3. An indicted person shall have the right to choose freely his or her defense counsel to assist him or her in all procedural steps.
4. The defense counsel must be an attorney, in the absence of whom, the defendant may be assisted by any other person of his or her free choice, except in cases in which, by law, legal representation must be exercised by an attorney.
5. Indicted persons who, for economic reasons, are unable to retain an attorney, shall be guaranteed adequate legal aid through appropriate institutions.
6. Criminal trial shall be basically adversarial in structure, with the investigative measures that the law determines, the allegation, the court hearing and the appeal subject to the adversarial principle.
7. The right to a hearing and to defense in a criminal trial or in any sanction proceeding, including the right of access to prosecution evidence, guarantees against procedural acts or omissions that affect his or her rights, liberties and guarantees, as well as the right of appeal, shall be inviolable and shall be guaranteed for every indicted person.
8. All evidence obtained through torture, coercion, violation of the physical or moral integrity, abusive interference with correspondence, telecommunications, domicile or with private life or through other illicit means, shall be null and void.
9. Hearings in a criminal trial shall be public, unless the preservation of personal, family or social intimacy determines the exclusion or restriction of publicity.
10. No case may be withheld from a court whose jurisdiction is established in an earlier law.
CODE OF PENAL PROCEDURE OF CAPE VERDE
PART ONE
PRELIMINARY VOLUME
FOUNDATIONS OF PENAL PROCEDURE
TITLE IV - JURISDICTION AND COMPETENCE
CHAPTER I - GENERAL PROVISIONS
Article 31
Jurisdictional function
Only the courts shall be competent to decide penal cases and to impose penalties or security measures.
1. In respect of an investigation under this Statute, a person:
(a) Shall not be compelled to incriminate himself or herself or to confess guilt;
(b) Shall not be subjected to any form of coercion, duress or threat, to torture or to any other form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;
(c) Shall, if questioned in a language other than a language the person fully understands and speaks, have, free of any cost, the assistance of a competent interpreter and such translations as are necessary to meet the requirements of fairness; and
(d) Shall not be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention, and shall not be deprived of his or her liberty except on such grounds and in accordance with such procedures as are established in this Statute.
2. Where there are grounds to believe that a person has committed a crime within the jurisdiction of the Court and that person is about to be questioned either by the Prosecutor, or by national authorities pursuant to a request made under Part 9, that person shall also have the following rights of which he or she shall be informed prior to being questioned:
(a) To be informed, prior to being questioned, that there are grounds to believe that he or she has committed a crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;
(b) To remain silent, without such silence being a consideration in the determination of guilt or innocence;
(c) To have legal assistance of the person's choosing, or, if the person does not have legal assistance, to have legal assistance assigned to him or her, in any case where the interests of justice so require, and without payment by the person in any such case if the person does not have sufficient means to pay for it; and
(d) To be questioned in the presence of counsel unless the person has voluntarily waived his or her right to counsel.
1. The accused shall be present during the trial.
2. If the accused, being present before the Court, continues to disrupt the trial, the Trial Chamber may remove the accused and shall make provision for him or her to observe the trial and instruct counsel from outside the courtroom, through the use of communications technology, if required. Such measures shall be taken only in exceptional circumstances after other reasonable alternatives have proved inadequate, and only for such duration as is strictly required.
1. Everyone shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty before the Court in accordance with the applicable law.
2. The onus is on the Prosecutor to prove the guilt of the accused.
3. In order to convict the accused, the Court must be convinced of the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt.
1. In the determination of any charge, the accused shall be entitled to a public hearing, having regard to the provisions of this Statute, to a fair hearing conducted impartially, and to the following minimum guarantees, in full equality:
(a) To be informed promptly and in detail of the nature, cause and content of the charge, in a language which the accused fully understands and speaks;
(b) To have adequate time and facilities for the preparation of the defence and to communicate freely with counsel of the accused's choosing in confidence;
(c) To be tried without undue delay;
(d) Subject to article 63, paragraph 2, to be present at the trial, to conduct the defence in person or through legal assistance of the accused's choosing, to be informed, if the accused does not have legal assistance, of this right and to have legal assistance assigned by the Court in any case where the interests of justice so require, and without payment if the accused lacks sufficient means to pay for it;
(e) To examine, or have examined, the witnesses against him or her and to obtain the attendance and examination of witnesses on his or her behalf under the same conditions as witnesses against him or her. The accused shall also be entitled to raise defences and to present other evidence admissible under this Statute;
(f) To have, free of any cost, the assistance of a competent interpreter and such translations as are necessary to meet the requirements of fairness, if any of the proceedings of or documents presented to the Court are not in a language which the accused fully understands and speaks;
(g) Not to be compelled to testify or to confess guilt and to remain silent, without such silence being a consideration in the determination of guilt or innocence;
(h) To make an unsworn oral or written statement in his or her defence; and
(i) Not to have imposed on him or her any reversal of the burden of proof or any onus of rebuttal.
2. In addition to any other disclosure provided for in this Statute, the Prosecutor shall, as soon as practicable, disclose to the defence evidence in the Prosecutor's possession or control which he or she believes shows or tends to show the innocence of the accused, or to mitigate the guilt of the accused, or which may affect the credibility of prosecution evidence. In case of doubt as to the application of this paragraph, the Court shall decide.