Pre-trial detention is used extensively in Latin America as a systematic practice implemented by courts. Despite this fact, few empirical studies have analysed the role of defence attorneys in pre-trial incarceration. This paper attempts to describe the actions taken by lawyers in order to free their clients during the judicial process, using new empirical evidence collected from the incarcerated population in Argentina, Brazil, El Salvador, Chile, Mexico and Peru. Results suggest that public defenders request conditional release less frequently but do so more effectively than their private counterparts.

This paper argues that lower courts have used their discretionary powers provided within legislation and St-Cloud to infuse a predominantly retributive interpretation into the public confidence in the administration of justice ground of pre-trial detention. This is illustrated notably by their choice of and weight afforded to the various aggravating and mitigating factors, the circumstances that relate to the commission of the offence, as well as their analysis of the length of imprisonment. This transfer of sentencing rationales, and to a greater extent, retributivism, into the third ground of pre-trial detention is used, in part, to justify pre-trial detention and can partially explain the rates of pre-trial detention. Finally, the underlying sentencing logic within the bail process can be understood within a sociological perspective, which examines the wider social functions of institutions and suggests that the bail process is an extension of punishment that serves to reinstate social order and public confidence.

This article examines the problematic enforcement of the right to personal liberty in Cameroon. It offers a critical review of that right by assessing its compatibility with international standards endorsed by article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and article 6 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. It finds that, although a small number of provisions are not sufficiently robust to protect that right adequately, for the most part the Cameroonian provisions reflect international standards. In the light of that assessment, the article seeks to identify the impediments to the effective enforcement of the right and to recommend the most effective and feasible mechanisms for developing a robust enforcement framework for the protection and promotion of the right to personal liberty in Cameroon.