NYUSI URGES JUDICIARY TO PURIFY ITS RANKS

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi on Monday urged the country’s judiciary to “purify your ranks, because in your midst there are people who are staining your seriousness and dignity”.Speaking at the ceremony marking the start of the 2015 judicial year, Nyusi said “it takes courage to make changes. I want to challenge the judiciary to make the necessary changes. On this depends the good name, honor and dignity of the judiciary”.“We want the judges, the lawyers, the police and all those who work in the administration of justice to enjoy the respect of our people”, he added. “This necessarily involves consolidating principles and values such as integrity, professionalism and respect for the people whom you swore to serve”.“We cannot remain calm when we hear the people crying out for quicker, fairer and more honest justice”, said Nyusi. He challenged the judiciary to win the trust and support of the people by making the necessary changes.Corruption, the President warned, “is an evil that corrodes our social fabric with serious consequences in all areas of our state”.Society demanded from the administration of justice an implacable attitude in the fight against corruption. “The magistrate, as a guardian of legality, must be intolerant towards acts of corruption”, Nyusi demanded. “Otherwise your image, built with much work and sacrifice, will be damaged”.  The President of the Supreme Court, Adelino Muchanga, said that Mozambique has just 311 judges. Of these, 288 are working in the courts, while the others are in full time study, or seconded to other work.This means that there are 1.1 judges for every 100,000 inhabitants of the country. But that figure is an average. The situation is much worse in the two most populous provinces. There is one judge for every 150,000 people in Nampula, and one for every 200,000 in Zambezia, said Muchanga.The courts are working with a heavy backlog of cases. Muchanga said that, at the start of 2014, there were 150,079 cases pending. During the year, a further 108,487 cases entered the courts. But only 97,196 cases were concluded over the year, and so the backlog increased, with 161,370 cases passing into 2015.