Honorable Justice Januària Costa is a Cape Verdean lawyer with a law degree from the Faculty of Law at the University of Lisbon. She is currently a judge on the ECOWAS Court of Justice. Justice Costa was registered as a lawyer under the Portuguese Bar Association and started a Legal Practice there in 1991.

In 1993, she served as manager of the Judicial Component of the ‘Public Sector Reform and Capacity Building’ project financed by the World Bank. In 1995, she served as a correspondent for the Permanent Secretariat of the Conference of Ministers of Justice of Lusophone Countries and was on the Organizing Committee of the IV Conference of Ministers of Justice of Lusophone Countries. In 1996, she served as Advisor to the Minister of Justice and was elected as a Judge of Law in the Cape Verdean District of São Filipe. She was transferred as Judge of Law to the Civil Court of the District of Santa Catarina in 1998, and in 1999 she was selected as Judge of Law in the Auxiliary Civil Court of Praia. She served as President of the Council of Social Communication in 1999 and was Minister of Justice from 1999 to 2001.

In 2005 she served as a Judge of Law at the 4th Civil Court of Comarca da Praia. She served as a professor at the Jean Piaget University of Cape Verde between 2009 and 2011 and was a Member of the Superior Council of the Judiciary from 2009 to 2012. Justice Costa has completed Complementary Training in Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure and Fundamental Rights, and attended a Judges Training Course at the Judicial Studies Center, Lisbon in 1995. In 2006, Justice Costa participated in the 1st Course on Environmental Law for Lusophone Countries, a course organized by the Institute “O Direito Por o Planeta Verde” and the United Nations Environment Program in São Paulo, Brazil.