ABSTRACT
In the early 1990s there was hope that independent judiciaries could tame overly powerful executives and undisciplined legislatures. Nearly thirty years later, what is the record of African judiciaries in promoting democracy in Africa, and how do we understand that role? This chapter argues that we cannot distill the role of the judiciary down to either a static negative or positive force. Instead, the judiciary reflects the messiness of Africa’s varied hybrid regimes. Assertive courts can help to protect and promote democratization, but they can also be rapidly marginalized or even shut down altogether by threatened political elites; while an array of actors—from activists to incumbent presidents—can look to the courts to further their own agendas. This argument is situated in the broader comparative politics literature on Africa where we know that formal constitutional rules matter, but it is not always clear how they matter and how they interact with informal power structures changes over time. In order to understand the role of African courts in democratization, it is important to study them as both a political actor and as an arena for political contestation. In sum, it is clear that the judicialization of African politics will continue and that courts may be useful tools of regime oppression and important sites of political resistance.
