Watch: MISA Mozambique demands end to impunity for crimes against journalists
Photo: CDD Moçambique
The police must prove that the promotion of policemen involved in the assassination of civil society and election observation activist Anastacio Matavel on 7 October really was a genuine mistake, urged the chairperson of the Mozambique Bar Association, Flavio Menete, on Tuesday.
Speaking at the ceremony opening the 2020 judicial year, Menete said the affair of the promotion of three of the five assassins “leaves the perception that death squads do exist and that their members rise up the police career structure depending on their performance in carrying our barbaric tasks, which is unacceptable”.
Matavel was gunned down in broad daylight by a death squad of five men, all of whom turned out to be members of the Special Operations Group (GOE) of the Mozambican police, namely Euclidio Mapulasse, Edson Silica, Agapito Matavele, Nobrega Chauque and Martins Wiliamo.
The names of the murderers became public knowledge because their getaway car crashed, within minutes of the murder. Two of the assassins, Chauque and Wiliamo, died in the crash, Silica and Mapulasse were arrested, and Agapito Matavele is on the run.
Despite their involvement in first degree murder, the police General Command promoted Silica, Mapulasse and Agapito Matavele. Silica’s name was included in a dispatch of 27 December which promoted a number of officers to the rank of police sub-inspector. Mapulasse and Agapito were promoted to sergeant in a separate dispatch on the same day.
This scandal became public knowledge when the independent weekly “Savana” exposed the promotions in its issue of 24 January. Five days later the spokesperson for the police General Command, Orlando Mudumane, claimed the promotions were “a mistake” which had been corrected.
He said a dispatch revoking the promotions had been issued, but then refused to show it to reporters.
Given the circumstances of the Matavel assassinaton, said Menete, the onus was now on the police to prove that the promotion of the killers really was just a mistake, “and they know that everybody is watching them”.
Menete also condemned the practice of some police officers of refusing lawyers access to their clients held in police cells. They seemed to believe that the work of lawyers is restricted to appearing in court, and this was “a real aberration” and “an illegal and groundless attitude”.
Menete criticised the government for ignoring the ruling by the Constitutional Council, the country’s highest body in matters of constitutional and electoral law, on the scandal of Mozambique’s “hidden debts”. This term refers to the loans of over two billion US dollars obtained from the banks Credit Suisse and VTB of Russia by three fraudulent, security-related companies, namely Ematum (Mozambique Tuna Company), Proindicus and MAM (Mozambique Asset Management). The banks granted the money on the basis of illicit loan guarantees issued by the government of the day, under President Armando Guebuza.
In June 2019, the Constitutional Council declared null and void all acts concerning the Ematum loan and the government’s loan guarantee, “with all the legal consequences” that flow from this declaration. Yet, despite this clear instruction, the Finance Ministry has continued negotiating with the ex-Ematum bondholders, which Menete regarded as flagrantly illegal.
“We ask whether or not we are in a democratic state under the rule of law”, he added.
The ceremony was held under the slogan: “For a modern and economically accessible justice system” – but Menete argued this was impossible under the current Code on Legal Costs. Mozambique, he accused, is a country where justice is extremely expensive, and “the system is characterised by the lack of predictability of legal costs, which is one of the major obstacles to justice”.
Some of the costs went towards paying judges and prosecutors which Menete regarded as absurd, since they are already paid a salary by the state.
“We must have the courage to reform this code”, he said, “by greatly reducing costs and simplifying how they are calculated”.
It seems that President Filipe Nyusi agrees with Menete on this issue. Speaking at the end of the ceremony, he too insisted on reducing legal costs, so that the majority of citizens could enjoy access to the courts.
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The current model of legal costs, Nyusi said, “is not easy to understand, even for the main operators of the legal system. It often contributes to the denial of justice, or to acts of corruption”.
The President wanted to see the Code on Legal Costs revised “so as to guarantee that nobody is prevented from resorting to justice for economic reasons”.
The justice system should be modernised and should be as close as possible to the people, he urged. When he spoke with members of the public, they complained at the poor functioning of the administration of justice, and how slow the courts are to take decisions.
Nyusi announced the creation of a multi-sector group that will seek to stimulate reforms in the judiciary.
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