President says he would not like religion to be confused with politics in Mozambique

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President says he would not like religion to be confused with politics in Mozambique

12:34 CAT | 20 Jul 2017

TVM (File photo) / President Filipe Nyusi

President Nyusi has taken the opportunity presented by a recent visit to the Ministry of Justice, Constitutional and Religious Affairs to send a message to churches that have taken positions on political issues.

It is less than two weeks since the Catholic bishops took a stand on Mozambique’s so-called hidden debts, saying, “We cannot allow the Mozambican people to be burdened with the responsibility of paying with misery, blood and death, debts contracted on their behalf in an illegal and unconstitutional way”.

Yesterday, President Nyusi did not say explicitly that he was reacting to this type of intervention, but questioned the border between religion and politics. And he did so in polite language, saying “I would not like the religion of my country to be confused with politics. But if the new way of doing religion is this, we will have difficulties, as a country, reaching a conclusion”.

As a way out, the head of state instructed the Ministry to pay more attention to the relationship it has with the religious sector. “They need to know that there is an area of tutelage, an area that addresses their concerns. Not all, but those that are possible and legal.”

Another subject exciting the president is lack of patriotism – though he made it clear that being a patriot does not mean being a partisan. “How do you work to make sure that you are not training people who think, wrongly, that being non-partisan means not being patriotic?” he asked the Centre for Legal and Judicial Training director Judge Elisa Samuel.

She limited her answer to the terms of the Constitution. “We (judges) have the duty to respect and enforce the Constitution. The model for training judges is dictated by the Constitution. The Constitution itself establishes that the judicial magistrate must be independent, impartial, humane and highly responsible,” she said.

Hearing this answer, Nyusi said he was envious of nations who are proud of their country. “There are people of every possible system in the world who are proud of what they are. We still cannot have that feeling. We speak of national unity, but one can only speak of national unity if one is a patriot, a person who fights for a Mozambique without corruption, without disease, a country with transparency, education, water, energy and freedom of expression,” hHe said.

About the Ministry

The Ministry of Justice, Constitutional and Religious Affairs has more than 8,360 employees, of which more than half work in the prison service. Regarding the protected institutions, the registry service has 170 conservatories, 13 notary offices, a criminal registry office and 341 civil registry offices. Registration and notary services are established in almost all districts, with the exception of the nine newly created districts in Gaza and Zambézia provinces.

The IPAJ has more than 137 delegations, six of which are peripatetic. SERNAP has 34 prisons, with a capacity of 8,188 inmates, although the current prison population is 19,108 prisoners.

Minister Isac Chande said that budget cuts had put construction of a new IPAJ headquarters on hold, complaining that the ministry headquarters building was so small that only one national administration operated from it, with other directorates scattered throughout Maputo.