Mozambique: Constitutional Council "Strengthens Rule of Law" - AllAfrica.com

Maputo

Mozambican President Armando Guebuza declared on Saturday that the constitution of the Constitutional Council, the organic structure that regulations on all constitutional matters, is a cardinal portion in the building of the regulation of law.

Speaking on Saturday, at the startup of the new premises of the Constitutional Council, Guebuza said "The advantages of setting up a specific organic structure to inspect legislative Acts is of great importance in strengthening the regulation of law".

The council was established under the Fundamental Law of 1990, but for well over a decennary no Judges were appointed to it, and so its mathematical functions were exercised by the Supreme Court. Only in 2003 was the Constitutional Council physically established.

Its chief undertakings are to proclaim and validate election results, acting as the concluding tribunal of entreaty in election disputes, and to govern on issues of constitutional law.

Under its electoral mandate, it must also govern whether campaigners in presidential elections are eligible, and whether political political parties and alliances have got been legally formed. In the event of the President becoming not able to execute his duties, it is the Council that must declare his incapacity.

Outside of election periods, the undertaking which takes up most of the Council's clip is determining whether laws or other normative Acts of state organic structures are in line with the constitution. Key figs of state (such as the President, the Prime Minister, the president of parliament, or the attorney-general) may inquire the council to declare peculiar pieces of statute law unconstitutional.

So may a 3rd of the members of parliament, and any 2,000 person citizens.

The up-to-the-minute opinion of the Council, on 6 November, was to declare unconstitutional a edict by Guebuza establishing the Coordinating Legality and Justice Council (CCLJ), on the evidence that this exceeded his powerfulnesses and violated the separation of the executive, the legislative assembly and the judiciary.

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Guebuza showed no marks of bitterness and declared that setting up the Constitutional Council lets lasting control over the legislative assembly and other autonomous bodies, thus safeguarding the continued consolidation of the regulation of law.

The president of the Constitutional Council, Rui Baltazar, pledged that the Council will make all in its powerfulness not to let down those who sedimentation their trust in the peak organic structures of the Mozambican state.

The premises of the council are not new, but have got been completely rehabilitated, thus giving the seven Judges of the Constitutional Council and their support staff adequate space from which to work.