Handeka, an organization created in June 2017 that brings together activists like Luaty Beirão and Hitler Samussuku, and Mosaiko, a Christian non-governmental organization (NGO) promoting human rights, were two of the 17 associations invited to take part, on Monday, in the consultation process on the constitutional revision proposal submitted to the National Assembly by the President of the Republic.
In a joint statement, the organizations justify that, despite being advocates of constitutional revision, this process "should be subject to prior and broad consultation, contrary to what is currently being done and that it was already the method used for the approval of the Constitution. in 2010, in which the document is presented finalized to the various social actors ".
For this reason, by using the same method, the Constitution will continue to be a "great law with which a significant fringe of citizens is not identified", they add, stressing that the discussion to which they were invited contemplates only the articles subject to the proposed review exit from the presidential palace.
Handeka and Mosaiko understand, therefore, "that this 'consultation' has no other purpose than to legitimize a decision already taken, using civil society to give credence to a process that was already born biased" and decline the invitation.
The National Assembly has, in recent days, been promoting several institutional consultation meetings on the constitutional revision proposal proposed by João Lourenço.
The President proposes a clarification of the constitutional mechanisms of parliamentary political oversight over the executive power, in order to improve the positioning and the institutional relationship between the two sovereign bodies, to ensure the right to vote for Angolan citizens outside the country, to enshrine constitutionally Banco Nacional de Angola is an administrative entity independent of the executive branch and withdraws the principle of gradualism in the effective institutionalization of local authorities so that it can be debated.
The proposal for the Constitutional review of the Republic of Angola is submitted to the National Assembly's Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs, for the preparation of the Constitutional Review Bill that will be discussed in the specialty, before approval in plenary session.
