Adalberto da Costa Júnior was speaking to Lusa this Friday, on the sidelines of the swearing-in of the shadow government of the Total National Union for the Independence of Angola (UNITA), commenting on the speech by João Lourenço who, on Wednesday, swore in eight new advisor judges of the Supreme Court.
"The state of justice in Angola is bad and the President of the Republic has responsibilities in this matter. The structure of powers is tripartite, sovereignty rests on three powers - the executive, the judicial and the legislative - and we know that in Angola they are overlapped, unfortunately," declared the UNITA leader.
"Despite the speeches, self-interest strategies, the truth is that the President of the Republic has great responsibilities in this matter and he is unfortunately not moving towards the resolution of problems and transparency", added the leader of the largest opposition party.
For Adalberto da Costa Júnior, it would be necessary to improve the country's governance in terms of justice, "but this is not what we have seen".
João Lourenço gave a speech at the inauguration explaining that he did not preside over the formal opening session of the judicial year due to the troubled moment for Justice and the public denunciations against the management of the then president of the Court of Auditors, Exalgina Gambôa, who had since been dismissed.
At stake, he said, are "irrefutable facts" that point to an attempt to extort members of the government, which led the head of state to ask him to resign.
The chief executive also said that the Public Prosecutor's Office is "working on establishing the truth of the facts", taking into account the suspicions surrounding the President of the Supreme Court, Counselor Judge Joel Leonardo, whose removal was requested by the plenary of that body.
"I did not see in this speech (...) the assumption of complementarity and independence of powers and the inauguration given is yet another confirmation. There are judges who warned and were not heard, this investiture is unconstitutional because it was not judges who took office", continued Adalberto da Costa Júnior, insisting on João Lourenço's responsibilities in the malaise of justice.
"I would very much like to see the Presidency assuming a role of impartiality, distancing and non-interference, but we are in quite the opposite situation", he concluded.
