Mozambique: Renamo files revision of the Constitution / MDM agrees

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Mozambique: Renamo files revision of the Constitution / MDM agrees

9:48 CAT | 01 Dec 2015

Televisão de Moçambique.

The head of Renamo in Parliament, Ivone Soares, said yesterday in Maputo that her parliamentary group had decided to submit a partial revision of the Mozambican constitution to Parliament.

The measure aims to adjust the “mother law” to the current political, economic and social development needs of the country as they result from the presidential, parliamentary and provincial assembly elections held last year.

Speaking at the parliamentary hearing organized by the committees on Constitutional Affairs, Human Rights and Legality and Public Administration and Local Government, Soares said that in submitting this project, Renamo is imbued with the most authentic, pure and sincere desire to contribute to the administrative decentralization of the country, for the strengthening of democracy, national development, consolidation of peace, national unity, the rule of law based on pluralism of expression and democratic political organization, and respect for and guarantees of the fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens.

As background, the Renamo bench recalled that it had submitted a draft law on the Institutional Framework of Municipalities Provinces in March this year which was rejected by the Frelimo ruling party majority.

“Voting against our draft law was dictated, among other things, by the annulment of the constitutional principles of administrative territorial organization contained in Article 7 of the Constitution, the elimination of the principles of decentralization, unity of action and of government directory powers provided for in Articles 250 and 263, of the Constitution of the Republic, the tacit revocation of Law No. 8/2003, of 19 May, not complying with the local government objectives set out in Article 271 of the Constitution and the generation of irremediable conflict between bodies of provincial authorities and the local State bodies in local authorities,” Soares recalled.

The main opposition party had therefore decided to submit this draft for the revision of the Constitution with “the sole intention of obtaining the decentralization of state powers”, with Soares expressing the readiness of the Renamo bench to listen to contributions to the content of the proposal under consideration.

Soares was accompanied at this hearing by members of the Renamo parliamentary bench, among them José Manteigas Gabriel, recently graduated in law and who took the opportunity to offer technical explanations of points raised by the members of the committee at the meeting.

The revision of the Constitution presented by Renamo consists of two articles that Articles 8, 160, 271 and 273 of the “mother law”.

Under the Renamo proposal, Article 8 would read: “The autonomy of local authorities does not affect the integrity of the sovereignty of the state and shall be exercised within the framework of the Constitution.”

Article 271, laying down the categories of local authorities, would state that local authorities are at provincial-level, city level and town level (number 1); the territory of the provincial authorities coincides with the area of jurisdiction with provincial category (number 2); municipalities correspond to the territorial constituency of cities and towns (number 3); municipalities correspond to the territorial division of administrative posts (number 4); and that the law may establish other categories of local authorities, higher or lower, within the framework of administrative decentralization (number 5).

Soares was speaking at a joint hearing of the parliamentary commission of Constitutional Affairs, Human Rights and Legality and the parliamentary commission of Public Administration and Local Government.

The Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM) attended the hearing and has declared through its parliamentary leader, Lutero Simango, that it agrees with the need to review the Constitution, as TVM reports.

Source: Jornal Notícias / Televisão de Moçambique