Criminal
Received English common law and colonial statutes, with the death penalty abolished in 2021
Sierra Leone has no consolidated criminal code; offences derive from received English common law, the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and later local statutes. The Abolition of the Death Penalty Act 2021 removed capital punishment entirely, replacing it with a minimum thirty-year term or life imprisonment.
Key rules
- Jurisdiction — Magistrates' Courts and High Court; local courts in the provinces have limited criminal jurisdiction over customary matters.
Governing law
- Abolition of the Death Penalty Act, 2021 — Full abolition; minimum thirty years or life substituted.
- Criminal Procedure Act, 1965 — Arrest, bail, committal and trial.
- Sexual Offences Act, 2012, amended 2019 — Age of consent 18; mandatory minimum sentences.
In practice
Substantive criminal law rests on received English common law as at the reception date, together with imported nineteenth-century statutes such as the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and the Larceny Act 1916, supplemented by modern local legislation on sexual offences, anti-corruption and cybercrime. The absence of a code makes the law hard to locate, a problem the Law Reform Commission has repeatedly flagged. The landmark reform is the Abolition of the Death Penalty Act 2021, which abolished capital punishment for all offences including treason and murder — placing Sierra Leone among the minority of fully abolitionist African states — with courts directed to impose a minimum of thirty years or life for the affected offences. The Sexual Offences Act 2012, amended in 2019, sets the age of consent at 18 and prescribes heavy minimum sentences for rape and sexual penetration of a child. The Criminal Procedure Act 1965 governs process, and the 2020 repeal of the seditious libel provisions of the Public Order Act 1965 ended criminal defamation.