At least 20 judges have been expelled from the judiciary in the last 10 years for committing crimes, mainly corruption.

The information was revealed by the president of the Mozambican Association of Judges (AMJ), Carlos Mondlane, speaking to the press in Maputo, during the Meeting of Judicial Magistrates to discuss the Ethical Commitment of Mozambican Judges.

"We have a policy of zero tolerance for cases of corruption. To say that whenever the Council comes across situations of this nature involving judges, the policy is to apply the penalty of expulsion," said the magistrate, according to AIM.

According to Mondlane, with this number of expulsions recorded, we can't think that there is a high level of corruption, but we should know that there is a response to the cases identified.

"These expulsion sentences can be seen in the sense that there is a lot of corruption in the system. We don't go into this discourse about there being a lot of corruption in the system, but [rather] we recognize that the little corruption that does manifest itself has a strong response from the judicial system," Mondlane explained.

The Superior Council of the Judiciary launched the Code of Ethics for Judicial Magistrates on April 24 in Maputo, in order to establish rules that distance magistrates from corrupt practices.

On Monday (08), the day of the Mozambican judge was celebrated, a date established nine years ago in reference to the murder of the judge of criminal investigation, Dinis Silica, on March 8, 2014, in the city of Maputo, when he was on his way to work after leaving his home.