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Mozambique: Lawyers want the same immunity as MPs
8:08 CAT | 22 Nov 2021
Photo: OAM
The former vice-president of the Mozambican Bar Association (OAM) José Caldeira on Friday argued that lawyers should enjoy the same immunities as MPs, aiming at the full exercise of the function and defence of the democratic rule of law.
“MPs speak freely and accuse their peers [of various facts] and cannot be criminally prosecuted for those facts, it is not the same that is happening with lawyers,” Caldeira said.
Caldeira, a former judge, was speaking at a round table on “Defence and Strengthening of Lawyers’ Prerogatives”, organised on Friday in Maputo by the OAM.
The attribution in the law of immunities would protect lawyers from being the target of criminal proceedings for acts and statements made in the exercise of the right to defend defendants.
This is, he said, a prerogative in favour of defenders and, above all, of citizens who need legal assistance.
Caldeira said that the curtailment of lawyers’ freedom of movement in police stations was one of the main threats to the right to defence.
“Unfortunately, we still have situations in which the full exercise of the practice of law is impeded because the authorities do not understand or do not want to accept the importance of the lawyer, in private, having his client [in private], but also having professional secrecy,” he said.
He said it was common for police officers to refuse to allow lawyers and their clients to confer in private, in police stations, undermining the duty of professional secrecy imposed on lawyers.
The president of the OAM’s Commission for the Strengthening of Lawyers’ Prerogatives (CRPA), André Júnior, also defended the strengthening of protection for lawyers so that they can fully exercise their function.
“Lawyers are sanctioned just for expressing opinions inherent to the exercise of their function, leaving them in a situation of fragility, when they are only performing an activity with constitutional dignity,” said Júnior.
Police stations are the places where lawyers are exposed to situations of greater vulnerability because their presence is confused with complicity with suspects in the commission of crimes.
“The lawyer’s function should not be seen as confined to court because the lawyer should intervene in all stages of the criminal process,” he said.
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Source: Lusa
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