In his participation in the virtual seminar "Asset Recovery from Corruption in Angola and implications for Mozambique", organized by the Budget Monitoring Forum (FMO), Fernando Macedo, professor of Political Science and Constitutional Law, said he was concerned about the "initiative of the President of the Republic to promote a revision of the Constitution".
"The proposal that the President of the Republic makes to the judiciary is an attack on the democratic rule of law, because it aims to take power away from individual judges and, in a way, to have a judicial organization in which the Superior Council of the Judiciary and the Supreme Court would have excessive power that is incomprehensible, within the framework of a rule of law, to control the judges," said the professor.
In Fernando Macedo's view, these changes could also change "in a way, the fight against corruption.
"Each judge, when he has a case, would think twice if he could be guided in this or that direction in terms of his action and his decision-making ability, and this is all the more serious when it comes to the President of the Republic," he pointed out.
The professor of the Lusíada University of Angola underlined that the head of state "assumed that the fight against corruption should begin and should continue, regardless of the people who are targeted.
For the professor, Angola has seen "worrying signs" from the President, who has had "some decisions, some postures that show a lack of coherence and seriousness".
The National Assembly approved, on March 18, 2021, the proposal for a punctual revision of the Constitution of the Republic.
After the approval in plenary, the document is now submitted to the Commission of Constitutional and Legal Affairs of the National Assembly, for preparation of the Draft Constitutional Revision Law, which will be discussed in specialty, for approval in plenary.
The President proposes a clarification of the constitutional mechanisms of political supervision of the parliament over the executive power, in order to improve the positioning and institutional relationship between the two sovereign bodies, ensure the right to vote to Angolan citizens outside the country, constitutionally enshrine the National Bank of Angola as an administrative entity independent from the executive power, the de-constitutionalization of the principle of gradualism in the effective institutionalization of local authorities, to allow the parliament to discuss freely, among others.
