Mozambique: Judges say TSU favours those of the Supreme Court and harms others

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Mozambique: Judges say TSU favours those of the Supreme Court and harms others

12:21 CAT | 09 Nov 2022

File photo: DW

In view of their concerns about the Single Salary Table (TSU), judges in Mozambique say they are open and ready to talk to the government and the Assembly of the Republic. To this end, they have created commissions that will serve to advise the Association’s management in the negotiations. However, the profession reiterates that it will not go back on its claims, as the courts are sovereign bodies and their holders enjoy a special status provided for in the Constitution of the Republic.

Through a statement emanating from the extraordinary General Assembly held last Monday, the Mozambican Association of Judges (AMJ) said that it is open to starting dialogue with the government and the Assembly of the Republic, to remedy alleged injustices brought about by the TSU.

Contacted by ‘O País’, the AMJ declined to record an interview, but was willing to clarify their claims and projected subsequent steps.

The Association reveals the existence of several irregularities.

The first is that the TSU frameworks led to salary reductions which, in some cases, reached 30,000 meticais. That is, there are judges who were paid 30,000 meticais less than what they received prior to the implementation of the TSU.

The shortcomings did not end there.

“The TSU excluded some holders of sovereign bodies. It excluded some categories of judges, such as, for example, Judges at High Courts (Desembargadores) and judges of law A, B, C and D. And the Constitution of the Republic provides that the courts are organs of sovereignty and, when referring to the courts, it is not that you are referring only to the Supreme Court. And the TSU law came to consider only the president, vice president and adviser judges of the Supreme Court. Each one of the courts is a sovereign body in itself and does not depend on instructions from the Supreme Court,” a source linked to the AMJ management revealed.

The organization also reveals that the TSU equates judges with other employees of the State Apparatus, something which, in the professions view, is incorrect.

“This equalization cannot be made because judges have their own statute, one which is defined by law. And TSU didn’t heed that special judge statute. You cannot go to the frameworks by equivalence because our categories do not have possible equivalences. If, for example, we put a law graduate to do the work of a judge, he will not be able to do it, because the training the judge undergoes generates the possibility of a special status. Judges are not claiming that they don’t want to be paid the same as other categories; what we want is for the statute to be respected. For some reason, the judge’s statute is in the Constitution, it’s there because it represents a Power. Therefore, we say that TSU violates the Constitutional rights of judges,” O Pais’s source explained.

To help resolve these disagreements, together with the Assembly of the Republic and the government, the AMJ created commissions, which, according to the body, “will produce ideas, proposals that will advise the direction of the AMJ. That is, they are internal committees that aim to listen to members and suggest proposals for negotiations. Therefore, negotiations with the Assembly of the Republic, the government and the Supreme Court will be carried out through the representative body of the collective that is the direction of the association,” the same source clarified.

The judges say they are open to dialogue, but threaten to set in motion mechanisms to annul the law that creates the TSU, if its claims are not satisfied.

Source: O País