"In fact, this is not new for us and it is not new, the only thing that happened is that it tried to manifest itself, probably because the actors are now different and there is also greater scrutiny from citizens, greater openness of people, access to documentation," said Serra Bango, speaking to the Lusa news agency.
The official, who commented on the crisis that the Angolan judicial system has been facing in recent times, underlined that the whole situation was known "because documents that compromise and prove the possible involvement of these entities in unclear and transparent processes".
The activist was referring to news that has been released in recent days about the alleged involvement of the presiding judges of the Supreme Court, Joel Leonardo, and of the Court of Auditors, Exalgina Gambôa, in cases of corruption, embezzlement, among others.
"This doesn't mean that the others didn't do it. They probably would have done it, but access to documentation and the publication of that documentation was not easy as it is now, firstly, and also because the citizen's conscience for denouncing acts of impropriety or illicit acts involving public agents, was not as high as it is now", he stressed.
According to Serra Bango, "this is not an isolated fact", it also covers other agents in the judicial system "from top to bottom".
"We have always said, for more than 20 years, that the justice system in the game of the three powers is the weakest, the most fragile and the one that is easily conditioned by the executive power", he said, stressing that "the appointment and indication of these servants, to the top of the hierarchy of the judiciary obeys the criterion of strict confidence of the holder of executive power and of the party [in power]".
For the president of the AJPD, an excess of confidence could have originated the whole situation that is happening with these servants of justice, to the detriment of the discourse on the fight against corruption that the President has been defending.
"We are people trusted by the holder of executive power, we are going to do that similarly to what the others also did, first. According to the appetite for illicit and immediate enrichment, which is what happens", he said.
"Because it is not justified, that with the working conditions and the perks that these venerable judges have, it does not justify this type of behavior. Here there is also a lack of compliance with a certain distancing of judges in relation to business", he reinforced.
The president of the AJPD recalled that the former presiding judge of the Supreme Court, Rui Ferreira, was also forced to resign in circumstances similar to these, "involvement in business".
"It is necessary to conclude the inquiry that must be carried out, to establish an impartial and neutral investigation and to obtain the results and, through the results, determine responsibility, which is another element that we have been lacking here, the accountability of public agents, that the trial is not done in the public square", he stressed.
Regarding what could happen to these two public servants, Serra Bango points to two possible scenarios: "they remain silent and then find a place for them, an embassy, for example, or they return to political activity", in the case of Exalgina Gambôa, who is not in the career of justice.
"Or even the holder of executive power, seeing that his popularity is low in the fight against corruption, will use this fact as a scapegoat and sacrifice these two agents, to put them in a process of fighting corruption and show that the fight against corruption is to continue", he considered.
Asked whether the presidential decree that makes justice an interested party in the cases it judges has contributed to the current situation, he replied that "probably", taking into account that the document "shocks against the suitability, transparency, the impartial spirit that the judges must have".
"That would later result in judges being encouraged to determine which cases would be judged based on the benefits they would enjoy", said Serra Bango on presidential decree no. 69/21, which establishes that the Attorney General's Office and the courts, as part of the fight against corruption, now receive 10 percent of the net value of each financial and non-financial asset recovered in favor of the State.
The activist defended for the justice sector a strong, independent and autonomous justice system, to determine its budget, manage its funds, being essential that working conditions are created for all justice operators.
"We know that judges, in order to open a hearing, have to buy paper, ink, and sometimes they have to supply the generator themselves so they have energy in the room, buy a fan, etc., this is the main concern", he said.
