In a press release, the parliamentary group of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) reacted to the ruling of the Constitutional Court that dismissed the request to declare rule no. 3 of article 284 of the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly unconstitutional , as part of the process of indicting and dismissing the President of the Republic.
Speaking to the Lusa agency, UNITA deputy Mihaela Webba said that in the opinion of the parliamentary group, this rule conflicts with what the Constitution of the Republic establishes as the beginning of the dismissal process.
“The Assembly has no life, it is the group of people, the group of deputies of the most different sensibilities, and, therefore, the constituent legislator, knowing this, established a minimum of 73 (one third) of deputies to start the process [ of dismissal]. This is what paragraph b) of paragraph 5 of article 129 of the Constitution establishes”, said Mihaela Webba.
According to the same source, this one third of deputies, provided for in the Constitution, contradicts the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly, which provides that the dismissal process must be initiated through the creation of an eventual committee of parliament, which must be approved by an absolute majority. of deputies currently in office, that is, two thirds.
“Because this absolute majority is no longer 73 deputies, it is already 111 deputies. If 111 deputies decide not to create the Eventual Committee, the process will not move forward, well, there is no such thing in the Constitution,” she explained.
The Constitution of the Republic, continued Mihaela Webba, establishes that the process of dismissing the President begins with one third and ends in parliament with the approval of two thirds.
“By introducing an absolute majority for the creation of the Occasional Committee, the rules obstruct the achievement of what is enshrined in article 129 of the Constitution”, stressed the deputy.
Mihaela Webba said that the parliamentary group, “despite its firm conviction”, will respect the decision of the Constitutional Court which, she claimed, used legal arguments to safeguard a political situation.
According to the UNITA parliamentary group, the case was referred to the Constitutional Court following the holding of the extraordinary plenary session on October 14, 2023, which had as its sole point the proposal to create an Eventual Committee on the process of indictment and dismissal of the President of the Republic, signed by 90 deputies to the National Assembly.
This extraordinary plenary session, according to UNITA, was marked “by several irregularities, illegalities and nullities” and the dismissal process ended up not even being started.
In a ruling released on Thursday, the advisory judges of the Constitutional Court decided to “deny the request for the declaration of unconstitutionality of rule no. 3 of article 284 of the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly”.
This rule states that “once the proposal to initiate the process of indictment and dismissal of the President of the Republic has been received, the plenary of the National Assembly meets urgently and creates, by an absolute majority of the deputies in office, an Occasional Committee, in order to to prepare an opinion report on the matter, within the deadline set”.
For its part, the Constitution provides in point 5 of article 129 that “the initiative proposal is presented by one third of the deputies in office” and that “the deliberation is approved by a majority of two thirds of the deputies in office, After that, the respective communication or procedural petition must be sent to the Supreme Court or the Constitutional Court, as the case may be”.
In the 30-page decision, the plenary of judges considers that “in fact, number 5 of article 129 of the Constitution does not say anything about the procedures to be adopted by the National Assembly after receiving the proposal to initiate the processes of criminal liability and dismissal of the President of the Republic, and does not expressly provide for the creation of a possible commission”.
“Therefore, either the Supreme Court or the Constitutional Court, as the case may be, cannot promote criminal liability and the dismissal of the President of the Republic without the accusatory impulse of the National Assembly”, reads the ruling.
