AfricaPress-mozambique: The Confederation of Economic Associations (CTA), Mozambique’s employers’ association, is opposed to the entry into force of Decree No. 114/2020, of 31 December, which approves the Regulation on Costs of Jurisdiction, and revokes Decrees Nos. 28 and 29/96 of 9th of July.
Judicial or procedural costs or fees correspond to the cost of providing the public service of justice in the courts. In this context, the CTA condemns the increase in these fees as generally harmful to private sector entrepreneurs.
The CTA begins its analysis by arguing that the Court Costs Regulation already has serious constitutional problems, as the simple designation of regulation presupposes that a law (a previous, enabling law) has given the government the power to regulate, which does not seem to result from article 79 of Law no. 24/2013 of 1 November (Organic Law on Administrative Jurisdiction), as amended by Law no. 7/2015 of 7 October, which suggests that the matter must be approved by Decree-Law.
The CTA also reports that it has constantly been receiving complaints from businesspeople in all provinces about the increase in these costs, which it says constitute an excessive burden on the private sector and to a degree limits access to justice.
“The increase in court fees goes against the government’s own discourse, which recognises that the increase in costs limits access to justice. In his opening speech for the judicial year, on February 1, 2021, the President of the Republic, Filipe Nyusi, took a stand on the issue of court fees. The same had been done during the electoral campaign, on 10 October, 2019, noting that the system of court fees, in addition to being inaccessible, may lead to the exclusion of beneficiaries, starting with the inequality of treatment between the operators of justice,” the CTA document asserts.
The CTA’s main focus is on the court costs applicable to the issuance of visas [vistos]. These procedures are included in Section II of Chapter IV of the new Cost Regulations, whose title is Financial Litigation. The CTA provides two examples to illustrate the severity of the increases.
“Example 1: A Ministry Y that signs a contract with Construções X for the construction of a bridge, in the amount of 500,000,000.00 meticais. Before December 31, 2020, (revoked decree) the amount for the fee (cost) would be 50,000.00 meticais, but under the new Decree, the amount to be paid is 8,500,000.00 meticais.”
“Example 2: The Court Y signed a contract with company XPTO for the supply of goods in the amount of 10,930,000.00 meticais. Before December 31, 2020, the total amount to be paid would be 1,096.00 meticais but in the new Decree, in force since December 2020, the total amount to be paid would be 185,810.00 meticais.”
The CTA calculates that both examples exhibit an increase of about 17,000%, given that the amount charged went from 50,000.00 to 8,500,000.00 meticais in the first case and from 1,096.00 to 185,810.00 meticais, in the second case.
The CTA therefore argues that the new decree should be revised, and also that the government should understand that an analysis of the aforementioned regulation needs to be carried out in the usual terms by the competent bodies, with due preparation and justification
