Bar Association considers lawyer’s removal from trial “illegal and abusive” – Carta | Mozambique

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Bar Association considers lawyer’s removal from trial “illegal and abusive” – Carta | Mozambique

3:40 CAT | 25 Oct 2021

FILE PHOTO : Youtube

The removal of lawyer Alexandre Chivale from the ‘hidden debts’ trial – taking place since August 23 at the 6th Criminal Section of the Judicial Court of Maputo City – remains a bone of contention.

Last Friday, the Mozambican Bar Association (AOM), the organization that regulates the profession in the country, issued a note repudiating the decision taken by Judge Efigénio Baptista to remove Alexandre Chivale from case n° 18/2019- C for allegedly being a member of the State Information and Security Service (SISE) and manager of an alleged vehicle of that institution.

According to the Bar Association, the procedure used by the Court to remove Chivale from the trial at the ‘B.O tent’ is “illegal, abusive, disrespectful, discrediting and without any use for the good administration of justice, and constitutes an affront to the democratic rule of law and the realisation of justice”.

“The Bar Association, through the National Council, has the exclusive competence to verify the incompatibilities and impediments of its members, as well as, through the Jurisdictional Council, the reserve of exclusive disciplinary jurisdiction for any violation of the duty of probity,” reads the statement published on Sunday. “The declaration of the impediment of illustrious colleague Dr Alexandre Chivale, under the terms in which it was made, consubstantiates a manifest and serious precedent of usurpation of the Bar Association’s attributions, by another pillar of the administration of justice.”

“It is the understanding of the National Council of the Mozambican Bar Association that, if the courts are competent to find the procedural impediments, the Mozambican Bar Association, as an entity with powers of self-regulation of the profession, is recognised as a reserve of jurisdiction to find the impediments, incompatibilities and the disciplinary infractions of its members provided for in its Statute,” the statement adds, emphasising that the interpretation of the regime regarding incompatibilities and impediments provided for in the statute of the order “does not allow, in abstract, a generalisation of the impediment to any lawyer who is linked to a public institution public of sponsoring litigation against the state”.

The Bar Association note was issued one day after the organisation, as Assistant to the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Claims No. 18/2019-C, unsuccessfully asked judge Efigénio José Baptista to review his decision, as it deemed it as of the competence of the organisation’s National Council.

“Attorney Alexandre Chivale was not removed just because he is a public official, but also because there are conflicts of interest and indication of crimes. It is not about any persecution,” Baptista told the Mozambican Bar Association representatives, adding that the court could not reverse its decisions, and that they would therefore have to appeal to a higher court.

The judge also explained that the court must decide in the case files, as it is in the case files that any type of impediment is declared, including the judge’s own. “The court is not able to understand how a different entity can decide an issue outside the case files, and [it] then be added to the case files,” Judge Batista concluded.

Following the removal of Alexandre Chivale, Isalcio Mahanjane is the new judicial representative of António Carlos Do Rosário, Maria Inês Moiane and Elias Moiane. The trial resumes on Thursday.

Source: Carta de Moçambique