Courts and Corruption: The Illusion of Horizontal Accountability under Laurenço

In well-functioning democracies, judges are neutral arbitrators and courts exercise a check-and-balance function on the other state branches of power – so-called horizontal accountability. There are many potential threats to exercising such an accountability function. One of them is corruption. This chapter examines the role that Angolan courts have played in combatting corruption across different political administrations, with a main focus on the presidency of João Lourenço (2017–present). Our analysis suggests that the politicization of the judiciary in Angola is becoming increasingly evident in Lourenço’s war on corruption, demonstrating the loyalty of the judiciary to the executive branch. We demonstrate that during the presidency of Lourenço, combating corruption has turned Angolan courts into a political battleground. Building on a combination of secondary sources such as judicial processes/court cases, publicly available official documents, newspaper articles, and public speeches) in combination with semi-structured interviews with judges, academics, and analysts, this study sheds light on to what extent Angolan courts have succeeded in exercising their accountability function, and thereby contributed to strengthening the rule of law and democracy.