
WOMEN CHIEF JUSTICES ACROSS AFRICA
Click below to read our background paper:
Her Ladyship Chief Justice: The Rise of Female Leadership in the Judiciary in Africa
Danièle Darlan
Central African Republic

President of the Constitutional Court , 2017-
Danièle Darlan is the first woman to lead a governmental institution in the Central African Republic. She was elected by the other nine members of the Constitutional Court in 2017 and is still fulfilling her seven-year, nonrenewable term as President of the Constitutional Court. Previously, Ms. Darlan was a professor teaching and researching public law at the University of Bangui, which she has been doing since 1982. Additionally, in the past, Ms. Darlan operated as a private lawyer defending her clients in the Central African Republic from 1995 to 2003 and working in the Department of National Education in the minister’s coordination office from 1986 to 1990. She was educated at the Universite de Perpignan Via Domitia in 1971-1975, where she received her master’s in public law and attended Universite de Provence-Aix-Marseille to receive her Juris doctorate degree from 1975-1978. Her most recent case regarded the postponement of a national election for the President of the Central African Republic due to the coronavirus. She affirmed the constitution and that the reform mandate proposed by the President to allow him to remain in office for a longer period was unlawful.