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Madagascar’s specialised anti-corruption court: The quest to end impunity

In 2018, Madagascar established a specialised independent anti-corruption court – the 'Pôle Anti-Corruption' – in response to impunity in conventional courts. Special features aimed to protect the court against executive interference and to safeguard its integrity seem to be effective in improving speed and conviction rates. However, financial autonomy remains an issue and a recently created special court for high-level politicians undermines the anti-corruption court’s ability to end impunity of the powerful.

Also available in French
21 October 2019
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Madagascar’s specialised anti-corruption court: The quest to end impunity

Main points

  • Donor conditionality leveraged by domestic reformers was instrumental in the set-up of Madagascar’s anti-corruption court.
  • There are a number of special design features to protect the court’s integrity and independence.
  • The specialised court is proving effective and adjudicates more cases at a higher pace and conviction rate than conventional courts.
  • The new High Court of Justice undermines the ability of the anti-corruption court to prosecute and convict high-level politicians.
  • Development partners should advocate the elimination of the High Court of Justice, or find other solutions to ensure high-level politicians are not above the law.

Cite this publication


Schatz, F. (2019) Madagascar’s specialised anti-corruption court: The quest to end impunity. Bergen: U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre, Chr. Michelsen Institute (U4 Brief 2019:2)

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About the author

Florian Schatz

Florian Schatz is a governance and monitoring and evaluation specialist with extensive experience in the areas of transparency and anti-corruption, civil society, decentralisation, and public sector reform. He has managed and implemented projects for GIZ, UNDP, and the World Bank, and has provided consultancy support to a range of clients such as DFID, Norad, and OECD. He currently serves as a project coordinator for GIZ and as an advisor to the Director General of Madagascar’s national anti-corruption authority – BIANCO.

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All views in this text are the author(s)’, and may differ from the U4 partner agencies’ policies.

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)