Our Governance and History

We are a project within the Dullah Omar Institute of the University of the Western Cape. The Dullah Omar Institute is advised by an Advisory Board and falls under the Faculty of Law of the University of the Western Cape, located in Cape Town, South Africa.

The Dullah Omar Institute, then known as the Community Law Centre, began operating in 1990. The Community Law Centre played an important role in the negotiations toward a democratic South Africa, particularly in the drafting of the South African Constitution. In 2015 the Community Law Centre became the Dullah Omar Institute, which continued to be housed within the Faculty of Law of the University of the Western Cape.

Our financial and academic administration and governance continues to be carried out in terms of the University's policies and processes.

As a programme of the Dullah Omar Institute, our work previously took place under the name of the Civil Society Prison Reform Initiative (CSPRI), which had among its sub-programmes Promoting Pre-trial Justice in Africa (PPJA) and its partnership in the Article 5 Initiative (A5i).

PPJA sought to provide information on pre-trial justice in Africa to inform decision-making and improve practice, while A5I sought to support African institutions in improvements to domestic compliance with international law obligations, norms and procedures under the United Nations Convention against Torture (UNCAT) and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR).

The CSPRI became Africa Criminal Justice Reform (ACJR), which encompasses all prior sub-programmes of CSPRI, on 18 April 2017.