Maputo, Mozambique — Mozambique's Attorney General Joaquim Madeira, in a scathing attack Thursday, denounced the country's justice system, describing it as sick.
Presenting his office's annual report to Parliament, Madeira indicted the system as rife with corruption.
He also attacked not only the country's legal codes and procedures as obsolete but also the attitude and behaviour of staff as despicable.
"What we witness today is a hair-raising absence of ethics, dedication and professionalism in the various bodies that play a role in the administration of justice," he declared.
Madeira warned that corruption in the legal system called into question the whole concept of the rule of law.
"When the legal system falls into discredit, because its staff allow themselves to be ruled by the easy profit to be had from tips and bribes, then any citizen may think that it is not worth demanding the restoration of violated rights," the Attorney General noted.
"The known behaviour of some judges, attorneys, lawyers, prison officers, policemen and even high-ranking police officers only help cement this belief and discredit our judicial system," he denounced.
Although Madeira did not go so far as to name names, he gave examples, which many people in the room certainly recognised.
"When an attorney burns a case file in front of the accused and receives from him seven million meticais (390 US dollars); when a judge releases a detainee without any bail requirement because he has been paid seven million meticais; when a director of the Criminal Investigation Police (PIC) practices extortion, abusively seizing a citizen's vehicle, then something is going very wrong in the bodies that administer justice," he lamented.
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Madeira dismissed the standard excuse for corruption, which is that wages in the legal system are too low.
"Peasants don't receive any wages at all, but they deal honestly with their neighbours, even when the fury of nature takes everything they possess," he countered.
One of Madeira's first decision, on taking office in mid- 2000, was to order inspections of the provincial attorneys' offices. This led to a major shake-up, with disciplinary and criminal proceedings started against some attorneys, and the demotion of others.
Madeira also took a jab on the country's police force, calling for a purge to rid it of elements that had links with organised crime.
"It is not possible to combat crime with policemen who are allies of the underworld or who derive benefits from it," the Attorney General reasoned.
