Help locating 3 Guinea-Bissau draft constitutions - 1980, 1999, 2001?

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Lyonette Louis-Jacques

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Apr 10, 2026, 2:16:54 PMApr 10
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Dear Int-Law and IALLmembers list’ers – Help! Ajuda! 😊

 

I’ve been looking for these three draft constitutions for Guinea-Bissau for quite a while now. So I’m hoping for suggestions for how to find copies of them. In any language. I’ve been looking for Portuguese (projecto da constituiçao. ante-projecto da constituiçao), English, French (projet de constitution). But any language will do.

 

I have not been able to find the archives of the National People’s Assembly, nor of the PAIGC. Any help locating archives or repositories of Guinea-Bissau parliamentary records, constitutional history documents, government documents, or national archives would be great. The drafts should be in the records/sessions/acts/proceedings of the Assembleia Nacional Popular for those years.

 

Or they could be separately published. I’ve only found the Ante-projecto da constituiçao da República da Guiné-Bissau (1980) published by the PAIGC as a separate book, but no libraries holding it in WorldCat. I haven’t found the (Partido Africano para a Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde (PAIGC)’s archives to check.

 

There is a Professor Kafft Kosta at the Universidade de Coimbra who writes about Guiné-Bissau constitutions. Maybe the University of Coimbra has archives?

 

 

Here are the draft constitutions I’m looking for:

 

  1. Guinea-Bissau draft constitution approved by the National People’s Assembly on 10 November 1980. Has been called the "aborted constitution" (Constituição Abortada).

 

  1. Guinea-Bissau draft constitution (called draft Constitutional Law – projecto da Lei Constitucional) of 7 July 1999.

 

  1. Guinea-Bissau draft constitution of 5 April 2001.

 

Thanks in advance,

Lyo.

 

P.S. Suggestions for any other relevant archives that would cover the draft constitution years welcome! Of course, if y’all know sources or citations of where we can get the copies, extra helpful! 😊

 

The Projecto Guiné-Bissau Contributo arquivo/archive only covers 2003-2014.

 

The Casa Comum archive didn’t seem to cover 1980?

 

Lyonette Louis-Jacques

Foreign and International Law Librarian and Lecturer in Law

D’Angelo Law Library, University of Chicago Law School

ll...@uchicago.edu

 

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