Africa-Press – Mozambique. The Mozambican Constitutional Council has declined to hear an appeal in which politician Venâncio Mondlane alleges that the Ministry of Justice exceeded the deadline for reviewing his party’s registration application, maintaining that the deadline remains current.
In the Constitutional Council’s ruling dated 14 July, Lusa consulted on Tuesday, the seven judges “decline to hear the appeal because the appeal lacks subject matter” concerning the case in which the Minister of Justice, Constitutional and Religious Affairs is the “respondent”.
“Today, 4 July, we submitted an appeal to the Constitutional Council,” Venâncio Mondlane announced on that day in a note published on his official Facebook account, stating that the Ministry of Justice will consider, “within the legal deadline,” the application for registration of the National Alliance for a Free and Autonomous Mozambique (Anamalala) party.
Venâncio Mondlane’s appeal recalls that they filed the application for the constitution of his political party with that ministry on 3 April, followed by a request to “rectify irregularities identified in the process,” and that they provided the latest information on 6 June, claiming that the ministry’s ongoing silence since then implies “tactical rejection.”
The Ministry of Justice, in its argument sent to the Constitutional Council, said that the process “is being duly handled and is well advanced towards a final response, and therefore the court should rule in favour of dismissing the present appeal.”
For the Constitutional Council, the need to request further details implies the suspension of the legal deadline for issuing the opinion, which is up to 60 days, the countdown of which “restarts”.
“In other words, it starts counting from 6 June 2025, which means that the Ministry of Justice is within the period in which it has the power to decide on the appeal,” reads the C.C. ruling, adding: “And, under the principle of separation of powers, this body will respect another body of the State’s powers and await its decision, from which the right to appeal allegedly exercised here may eventually emerge.”
In a letter from the Ministry of Justice, signed by Minister Mateus Saíze, dated 28 May and previously reported by Lusa, the ministry said that the term “Anamalala”, proposed as an acronym for National Alliance for a Free and Autonomous Mozambique, comes from the Macua language spoken in Nampula, in the north of the country, “and therefore already carries a linguistic meaning for those who use it to communicate”.
The Ministry then set a 30-day deadline for the acronym to be changed, starting from the date of publication of the document by the Mozambican justice institution.
Anamalala means “it will end” or “it is over”, an expression used by Venâncio Mondlane during the campaign for the general elections of 9 October 2024 and which became popular during the protests he called in the following months, as he maintained that the results of the vote did not reflect the people’s will.
The order explained that the statutes of the party that Venâncio Mondlane intends to create “require further alignment with the concept of principles and with the Constitution of the Republic and the Political Parties Act,” and it requested the necessary adjustments.
The Minister of Justice met on 9 June in Maputo with a delegation from the former presidential candidate to assess the process of legalising the political force.
Since the October elections, Mozambique has experienced a climate of intense social energy, with demonstrations and strikes called by Mondlane, who maintains that the election results, which favoured Daniel Chapo, supported by the ruling Frelimo party, do not reflect the people’s will.
According to non-governmental organisations monitoring the electoral process, around 400 people lost their lives as a result of clashes with the police, which ended after a meeting between Mondlane and Chapo on 23 March, repeated on 20 May, with a view to pacifying the country.
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