Maputo, 10 Jul (AIM) – The Mozambican Association of Judges (AMJ) has threatened a 30-day strike, as a measure of putting pressure on the government to respond to a series of concerns raised in May.
The AMJ says its members will not stop work altogether, but will provide only “minimum services”. They will concentrate on urgent cases but will not attend to normal, day-to-day matters, which constitute the bulk of the courts’ workload. This is equivalent to what a British trade unionist might call a “go-slow” or a “work to rule”.
According to a statement issued by the AMJ the strike will begin on 9 August, and may be extended, depending on the reaction from the government. The decision was taken by a unanimous vote at an extraordinary general meeting of the AMJ, held on Saturday.
The AMJ says it will hold another general meeting later this week to iron out the details of the strike, including a precise definition of “minimum services”.
The decision is quite unprecedented. Judges have never previously threatened to paralyse the court system.
The AMJ statement said that the strike decision was taken because the demands made in May have not been met, and the government has not even contacted the AMJ to try and solve the dispute.
Among the demands raised by the judges are the independence of the judiciary, including its financial independence.
The points of friction include implementation of the new Unified Wage Table (TSU) for the public administration. The AMJ says that when the new table was applied to judges, it resulted in cutting rights which the judges had acquired over the years.
Among the AMJ’s other concerns are the physical safety of the judges. Criminals have threatened and occasionally murdered judges. The most notorious recent case was that of judge Dinis Silica in May 2014.
He was shot 20 times as his car waited at traffic lights on the journey from his Maputo home to the courtroom. Silica was known to be one of the magistrates investigating the wave of kidnappings of business people in Maputo and other major cities. He did not have a bodyguard.
For his part, the Deputy Justice Minister and government spokesperson, Filimão Suaze, speaking on Tuesday at the end of the weekly meeting of the Council of Ministers (Cabinet), claimed that the government had not been notified of the AMJ’s decision to call a strike.
(AIM)
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