OAM wants separation of political and judicial power

OAM quer separação do poder político do poder judicial

The Mozambican Bar Association (OAM) wants the political and judicial powers in Mozambique to be "definitively" separated, so that there is no longer any subordination of the latter to the former.

"We must definitely distance the political power from the judicial power, otherwise we will evolve into a situation in which the judicial power has to present an activity report to the legislative power," said OAM President Carlos Martins.

The lawyers criticize, for example, the fact that the President of the Republic and the Assembly of the Republic are the figures of judicial sovereignty.

"The constitutional revision should be debated on the relevance of other sovereign powers, namely members of the superior councils of the magistrates, such as the President of the Republic, who appoints two, and the Assembly of the Republic, which appoints five, when it is up to these self-government bodies of the magistrates, among others, to manage, evaluate and discipline the magistrates, who are the embodiment of judicial power," he said.

Martins was speaking today in Maputo at the opening of the Judicial Year 2025, celebrated under the slogan: "50 Years of Building the Judiciary: New Era, New Challenges".

The OAM also advocates the revision of the Constitution of the Republic of Mozambique, the de-partisanship of the Constitutional Council and its transformation into a Constitutional Court.

"As far as the administrative jurisdiction is concerned, we were very pleased to hear the words of His Excellency the President of the Republic during his inauguration speech, when he referred to the transformation of the Administrative Court into the Supreme Administrative Court as one of the objectives of rapid access to justice, thus contradicting one of the objectives of the past government, one of the objectives of the past government, which was the unification of the common and administrative jurisdiction, that is, the administrative jurisdiction ceasing to be autonomous, without a study or reflection of the advantages and disadvantages of this unification having been presented, which would clearly be a setback in the safe, but not yet conclusive, trajectory taken by this jurisdiction."

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