Luanda - Aiming to assess the role and contribution of the traditional authorities in the implementation of public policies in the communities, the Angolan Government will hold in the first quarter of 2023 the Fourth National Meeting on Traditional Authorities.
According to the Head of State, João Lourenço, in his Message on the State of the Nation delivered in the opening of the First Session of the National Assembly’s Fourth Legislature (2022/2027), the Angolan State wants to allocate competences and set the traditional power typology.
For this purpose, the Government will submit to the National Assembly a draft-law on the traditional power institutions and once its approved, it will allow to set the competences, organization, control regime, as well as defining the responsibility for the institution's property.
The draft law will also enable to improve the institutional relationships between the State and local government bodies, as well as the typology of traditional authorities.
João Lourenço said that the Executive will carry out a re-registration of the traditional authorities for better control and policy making aiming to provide deserved dignity to the traditional authorities who, in fact, hold the title through lineage of succession.
Official data indicate that there are 50,000 registered chieftains in the country.
The Angolan Constitution recognizes custom as a source of law and this ratifies the framework of the customary law which is part of positive law, whether written or unwritten.
The Traditional Power is represented by the Traditional Authorities that for the Angolan legal system are recognized as an institution that collaborates with the State Power. The Traditional Power has its genesis and substratum in ancestry.
Traditional institutions are also the source of justice and this is justified by the principle that traditional justice is the alternative to formal justice and this, in turn, assumes the most human justice that finds its substance and support in Traditional Communities, through customs.
The Angolan State over the years has promoted a number of initiatives and activities aiming to recognize local authorities both institutionally and legally, as well as the determination of their area of intervention and creation of conditions for their dignification, such as the attribution of costumes, financial allowances and other incentives, which aim to recognise their importance within the framework of social stability and harmony in the communities.
