Paul Fauvet
3 April 2008
Maputo — According to the Higher Council of the Judicial Magistrature (CSMJ), the disciplinary and regulatory body for Mozambican judges, there was never any reason why President Armando Guebuza should not have appointed one of the country's best known judges, Augusto Paulino, as Attorney-General in August.
In a statement received by AIM on Thursday, the CSMJ has thus finally reacted publicly to the months long campaign of defamation against Paulino, waged by the right-wing weekly "Zambeze" and, more recently, by some parliamentary deputies of the former rebel movement Renamo.
The "Zambeze"/Renamo argument against Paulino is that he should never have been appointed because he was a suspect in a case involving the supposed theft of 300,000 meticais (about 12,500 US dollars) from state funds when he was presiding judge of the Maputo Provincial Court. The Renamo deputies have gone so far as to claim that this case is so serious that Paulino should not merely be sacked, but should be "compulsorily retired".
The CSMJ statement states that on 19 June last year the Council received a note from Guebuza, asking its opinion on his proposal to appoint Paulino to a high state office. The CSMJ was the correct body for Guebuza to approach, since at the time Paulino was still a judge (he had, however, been transferred from Maputo province, and was working as the presiding judge of the Maputo City Court).
By an interesting coincidence, on the same day the CSMJ received a denunciation from the then Attorney-General, Joaquim Madeira, concerning an alleged crime committed by Paulino. This denunciation was signed by an official of the Maputo Provincial Court, named Adelaide Muchanga, and was dated 26 November 2006.
This raises the question - why did the Attorney-General's office under Madeira allow a serious allegation against a senior judge to go uninvestigated for more than six months?
The CSMJ duly investigated Muchanga's allegation against Paulino. A month later, on 19 July, the CSMJ concluded that there was no evidence that Paulino had committed any crime, and that Muchanga's denunciation had been made "in bad faith". It ordered the case to be shelved.
The CSMJ told Guebuza that there was no legal obstacle to the appointment of Paulino to any public position. The CSMJ now reaffirms that position, saying it "never had any doubts about its legality".
But Paulino's enemies had more than one string to their bow. A few days after sending Muchanga's allegation to the CSMJ, Madeira's office also sent it to the Supreme Court, in order for criminal proceedings against Paulino to be initiated.
But the Supreme Court came to exactly the same conclusion as the CSMJ - namely that no crime had been committed. The CSMJ points out that the Paulino was never an accused, because there was never any crime that could be the subject of a charge sheet.
The legal position, it points out, is that no public servant can be suspended from his job, or hindered from exercising his duties, merely because somebody has set criminal proceedings in motion - only if he was found guilty of an offence, or if a judge issued a dispatch ruling that there was sufficient material for a trial, could he be suspended from office. In such cases there would be a charge sheet - but Paulino never faced any formal accusation. (Indeed, when the Supreme Court sent the papers back to the Attorney-General's Office, Assistant Attorney-General Erasmo Nhavoto issued a dispatch in which he declined to press any charges.)
As for the idea that Paulino should be compulsorily retired, the CSMJ remarks that people who make such a suggestion must be "badly informed". For this is a disciplinary measure taken against judges only after they have been found guilty of something.
The CSMJ concluded its statement by reiterating its "full confidence" in Paulino.
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