Mozambique: Prosecution makes second appeal in Guebuza’s libel case

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Mozambique: Prosecution makes second appeal in Guebuza’s libel case

7:20 CAT | 31 Aug 2020

FILE - Carlos Nuno Caste Branco (left) and Fernando Mbanze. [File photo: O País]

The Mozambican Public Prosecutor’s Office seems determined to risk ridicule in another attempt to overturn the acquittals of a prominent economist and a journalist who were accused of libelling the then President, Armando Guebuza, seven years ago.

The case arises from a post which one of the country’s most prominent economists, Carlos Nuno Castel-Branco put on his Facebook page in November 2013, severely criticizing Guebuza’s governance, declaring that the then President was “out of control” and calling on him to resign.

The second accused, journalist Fernando Mbanze, is editor of the independent newssheet “Mediafax”, which republished Castel-Branco’s text.

The Public Prosecutor’s office regarded the article as libelous and, since libeling the head of state and other senior political figures is considered a security offence, Castel-Branco was charged under the law on crimes against state security. Mbanze was accused of the nebulous offence of “abuse of press freedom” under the 1991 press law.

The Maputo city court analysed in detail Castel-Branco’s Facebook post – and could find nothing libelous in it. Giving his verdict on 16 September 2015, Judge Joao Guilherme said that Castel-Branco had simply been giving his opinion about the way Guebuza ran the country. Other people might find his criticisms uncomfortable, but that did not make them a crime.

The language used by Castel-Branco might be regarded as “impertinent and vulgar, but the law does not deal with mere impertinence and vulgarity”, the judge declared.

Guilherme’s verdict was widely welcomed, in Mozambique and abroad, as a victory for freedom of the press. But the Public Prosecutor’s Office, instead of conceding defeat gracefully, took the risk of appealing against the verdict.

The wheels of justice turn slowly in Mozambique, and it was only in July this year that the Higher Appeals Court (TSR) gave its ruling – and strongly supported Judge Guilherme’s verdict.

The four judges on the TSR wrote: “in the heat of political discussion about the performance of the President of the Republic, who handles the policies of the country, with the money of the taxpayers, exacerbated spirits should be tolerated. Freedom of expression should prevail over the pretension of the defence of honour, for the good of society and of the democratic rule of law”.

Just like Guilherme, the TSR judges could find nothing libellous in Castel-Branco’s text. In their view, he had merely been exercising his constitutional right to freedom of the press.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office found it offensive that, at one point in his Facebook post, Castel-Branco had written “the President and all the warmongers, criminals and would-be fascists will be tossed into the rubbish bin of history”.

But the TSR thought that there was nothing extraordinary about such polemical passages. “The President of the Republic, because of his topmost position in the leadership of the State is exposed to criticism. Calling on a President to resign because the writer does not believe he is handling correctly the destinies of the country is normal throughout the world”, the Court said.

The judges ruled that, since Castel-Branco’s text was not libellous, then Mbanze had committed no crime by reprinting it.

So the TSR threw out the prosecution’s appeal and confirmed the verdict of Judge Guilherme “in its exact terms”.

Thus the Public Prosecutor’s Office was roundly defeated twice. But even now it is not giving up. It has been granted leave to appeal against the TSR ruling all the way up to the Supreme Court. Such appeals can only be made on issues of law, not on matters of fact.

The Public Prosecutor is thus asking the Supreme Court to rule that both the Maputo City Court and the Higher Appeals Court do not understand the law.

Source: AIM