Africa-Press – Angola. The chairman of the Angolan Bar Association (OAA), Luís Paulo Monteiro, defended, Thursday (12), in Luanda, the ban on the practice of law by deputies to the National Assembly, to avoid administrative constraints and to confer greater fairness to juridical-legal acts.
Luís Paulo Monteiro, who was speaking to the press at the end of the consultation visit by members of the 1st Committee on Constitutional Affairs to the Angolan Bar Association, recognizes that there is no violation of the Law, but adds that there are constraints when citizens, who exercise a legislative function, present themselves in the institutions of administration of justice as lawyers.
“Justice operators are embarrassed, not knowing whether to treat these citizens as lawyers or as deputies”, stressed the chairman of the Bar Association. He added that the situation causes constraints to everyone, from prosecutors, judges, lawyers and other operators Justice, who, given the situation, are embarrassed to treat citizens, who are also deputies, on an “equal footing” with other lawyer citizens.
In this way, he referred that the operations have great difficulty in observing the principle of equality provided for in the Constitution of the Republic. “A deputy is a member of the sovereign body, with the right to differentiated treatment, so, under the circumstances, it is not possible to be treated on an equal footing with other lawyers”, underlined the chairman Luís Paulo Monteiro.
Constitution And Law On Law Do Not Provide For Incompatibility
Deputy Lourdes Caposso said she understands the situation, having expressed her dissatisfaction with the way deputies, who practice law, are treated. Of the 130 deputies in the national cycle, she mentioned, 26 are lawyers.
For deputy António Paulo, a member of the then Technical Commission that drafted the Constitution of the Republic, this issue was discussed at the time, but the few jurists who practiced law, integrated in the Commission, had enormous political weight, “so it was not possible to foresee in the Constitution the incompatibility of deputies in the practice of law”.
The professor of Political Science and Constitutional Law at the Agostinho Neto University Law School, made it clear that not all jurists who practice politics defend the practice of law by deputies. The spokesman for the delegation of deputies who visited the Bar Association, Jorge Wefu, assured that the matter will be taken to Parliament so that the situation can be resolved as soon as possible.
The chairman of the OAA said, on the other hand, that it was necessary to prohibit judges from signing draft orders and contracts. Luís Paulo Monteiro believes that these executive activities must be carried out by entities in the administrative and financial area of the courts, and not by judges.
Judges, he said, should be limited only to the task of carrying out justice, teaching and scientific research. The chairman also mentioned that prosecutors should also be prohibited from opening commercial companies.
Luís Paulo Monteiro said that OAA is represented throughout the country and that it currently controls 10,000 lawyers, of which 4,000 are lawyers and 6,000 are trainee lawyers.
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