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Mozambique: Second Candidate for Bar Association Chair
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Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
5 March 2008
Posted to the web 5 March 2008
Maputo
Mozambican lawyer Gilberto Correia on Wednesday launched his campaign to become chairperson of the Mozambican Bar Association, with promises to being solutions "out of the ordinary" to the problems facing the country's lawyers, and criticisms of the "lethargy" of the outgoing leadership.
The Bar Association was set up by a law of 1994. In its first elections, in 1996, Carlos Cauio, previously legal advisor to the then head of state, Joaquim Chissano, was elected chairperson. He has served two terms of office, and the current Deputy Chairperson, Jose Caldeira, is standing to succeed him.
Caldeira seemed certain to win, since until Wednesday morning he was the sole candidate. Correia put his nomination papers in just hours before the deadline of 17.00.
"My candidature arises from a consensus among lawyers that it's time for a change", Correia told reporters. "Its time for a dynamic and intervening leadership of the Bar Association, one with the discipline to carry out its promises, instead of the habit of just letting things happen".
Correia said he wanted to expand access to justice, and criticized the failure to implement the principle that justice is for everybody, rich and poor alike.
He attacked the current Bar Association leadership for its "incomprehensible lethargy and lack of intervention", which had resulted in "failure to carry out correctly its legal and statutory obligations".
Correia wanted to see a strengthening of the role played by the Bar Association in the legal system. He promised to work for specialist training of lawyers, and the defence of professional ethics.
He also vowed to raise the funds so that the Association could set up its headquarters in a decaying colonial mansion in central Maputo, known as the Vila Algarve. This used to be the Mozambican headquarters of the Portuguese secret police, the PIDE/DGS. After independence it was squatted in, and fell into disrepair.
It will take about 600,000 US dollars to rehabilitate the Vila Algarve (though Correia declined to confirm this sum). The government has promised 10 per cent of this sum, but the Bar Association will have to raise the rest of the money itself.
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Correia has been practicing law sine 1996, a year after he completed his law degree. He is one of the few lawyers who practices not in Maputo, but in the country's second city, Beira. The Bar Association election is scheduled for 25 March.
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| Copyright © 2008 Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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