Most Africans believe their courts treat people unequally and let the powerful escape punishment, a new Afrobarometer survey of 38 countries found, raising fresh doubts about equal justice.
The Afrobarometer Pan-Africa Profile drew on 50,961 interviews conducted across the continent in 2024 and 2025. It describes justice systems that many citizens accept as legitimate yet experience as unequal, expensive, and slow.
Inequality before the law stands out as the sharpest concern. Nearly six in ten respondents, 59 percent, said people are often or always treated unequally under the law. Almost half, 48 percent, said powerful people who break the law get off too lightly, against just 13 percent who felt the same about ordinary citizens.
Cost shuts many out of the courts altogether. Fewer than half believe they could afford legal advice (46 percent) or court fees (44 percent). Only 43 percent expect a case to be settled in reasonable time, and just half trust that ordinary people can obtain justice through the courts.
The barriers weigh heaviest on the vulnerable. Preference for traditional leaders, elders, and customary courts climbs among rural residents (47 percent), the poorest respondents (41 percent), and the least educated (53 percent), many of whom bypass formal courts.
Across the 38 countries, 41 percent said they would turn first to the police and 7 percent to local courts, while 26 percent would approach traditional authorities. The pattern suggests formal and informal systems will keep operating side by side.
Afrobarometer, a nonpartisan research network running surveys since 1999, said the results carry a margin of error of two to three percentage points. The findings come from its tenth round of polling on governance and quality of life.
