Mozambique: Assembly lessens burden on appeal courts – AIM report

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique: Assembly lessens burden on appeal courts – AIM report

10:10 CAT | 10 Dec 2020

File photo: eGlobal

The Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, on Wednesday unanimously passed an amendment to the Penal Procedural Code which will make it somewhat easier to appeal against sentences passed by district courts.

Previously, appeals could only be heard by the Higher Appeals Courts, and there are only three of these in the entire country (in Maputo, Beira and Nampula). All are still being consolidated, and have about 5,000 cases pending.

With the amendment to the code passed on Wednesday, appeals against district court verdicts and sentences will now be heard by the provincial courts (of which there are 11).

“What is currently happening is a serious setback to the right to access to justice”, said Antonio Boene, chairperson of the Assembly’s Commission on Constitutional, Legal and Human Rights Affairs, who introduced the amendment.

This is because most people live nowhere near any of the Higher Appeals Courts. If they feel their interests have been damaged by a district court decision, they may have to travel hundreds of kilometres to lodge an appeal, and may not be able to afford to make such a journey.

Boene pointed out that the backlog of cases in the Appeals Courts is getting worse. Of all Mozambique’s courts, he said, the Higher Appeals Courts are the ones that take the longest time to process cases “because of the large number of pending cases, and the growing demand of new appeals”.

“Right now, it is not advisable that appeals from the district courts should be sent to the Higher Appeals Courts”, he stressed. “That would just overload still further the appeals courts, and they would take even longer to respond”.

Bill increases legal time limits for preventive detention

The same bill increases the legal time limits for preventive detention in the case of certain crimes.

Currently, preventive detention cannot extend beyond four months, if no charges have been brought against the suspect. But with the amendment, a person suspected of terrorism, or of any crime for which the minimum prison term is more than eight years can be held for between six and ten months without charge.

The period of detention without charge can reach 12 or even 16 months in cases which are “exceptionally complex, concerning the nature of the victims, or the highly organized character of the crime”

Boene warned that, in the Mozambican context, when those strongly suspected of having committed serious crimes are released without charge, this is often interpreted as “impunity and can lead people to take the law into their own hands”.

Source: AIM