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Mozambique: Media NGO accuses court of ‘serious breach’ in barring recordings – Lusa
2:36 CAT | 17 Mar 2022
Photo: Miramar
The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), a non-governmental organisation, has accused a court in Mozambique trying a corruption case involving a former government minister of a “serious breach” of constitutional safeguards in preventing the capture of images and sound in the session.
“MISA Mozambique believes that this position of the court, apart from violating the freedom of press and the right to information proclaimed in Article 48 of the Constitution of the Republic of Mozambique, represents a serious breach of the principle of publicity of the hearings,” MISA said a news release released to Lusa today.
According to the release, the Maputo City Judicial Court banned journalists from filming and recording the trial in which a former minister of employment, Helena Taipo, and 10 other defendants are accused of embezzling over 113 million meticais (€1.6 million) from the state.
According to MISA, the court first asked the journalists to leave the courtroom on Tuesday, the first day of the trial, and then allowed them to return “through negotiations” with these including a bar on images or sound being taken during the proceedings.
“MISA recalls that it is only possible for the media to carry out their work without restrictions when they have their working tools” such as equipment for capturing images and sound, among others. “The absence of one of these instruments does not allow the dissemination of information with the rigour that characterises the profession.”
The allegation that the court has legal prerogatives that can prohibit trial proceedings from being made public, when it is deemed pertinent, is totally out of context and grossly violates Mozambique’s constitution, according to the NGO.
“MISA therefore appeals to the court to reconsider the restrictive decision it has taken … for the sake of the transparency of the trial and the citizens’ right to information, which is legally and constitutionally enshrined,” the release reads.
Restrictions on journalists’ coverage of trials in Mozambique is a matter of great controversy, with some judges taking the view that the law only allows the taking of notes and others accepting the recording of images and sound for later broadcast, and still others believing that live broadcasting of trial hearings is permissible.
The judge in the hidden debts case, perhaps the most high-profile trial in Mozambique’s history, has allowed the live broadcast of the hearings, based on the people’s right to information.
The Maputo City Judicial Court on Tuesday began the trial of Taipo and 10 other defendants for allegedly profiting from the embezzlement of €1.6 million from the state. Taipo, who served as a minister in the Frelimo government from 2005 to 2010 and her fellow accused are charged with having diverted the sum from the accounts of the Directorate of Migrant Labour (DTM), one of the entities under Taipo’s supervision at the time.
The former minister is also charged in another case of having received around 100 million meticais in bribes in 2014, allegedly for favouring construction and other companies in contracts with the National Institute of Social Security (INSS), which as minister she also oversaw.
Source: Lusa
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