The bill was approved with 155 votes in favor, none against and no abstentions during the ninth extraordinary plenary meeting of the National Assembly being held this Thursday in Luanda.
The Secretary of State for Human Rights and Citizenship, who made the presentation of the document in the plenary, assured that the draft law aims to "reaffirm the powers of cognition of the court on appeal in matters of fact and law under the law.
"It defines its administrative and financial autonomy, establishes the framework of judges of the Courts of Appeal, being the law to define this framework, proposes that the terms of office of the presidents of these courts are two years non-renewable and rotating," said Ana Celeste Januário.
The legal instrument also foresees the creation of a specific civil chamber, a fiscal and customs administrative litigation chamber, a family and juvenile justice chamber, a criminal chamber and a labor chamber.
A citizens' support office and a lawyers' support office, "which shall operate in the judicial secretariat of the courts of the relationship", are also foreseen in the bill.
In terms of support for judicial magistrates and the Public Prosecutor's Office, Ana Celeste Januário stressed that "the creation of technical support offices for both offices is also foreseen.
"We are specifying here the types of existing cases, both at the level of the plenary and at the level of each of the chambers. Similarly to what was established with the framework of embargoed judges, the framework of magistrates of the Public Prosecutor's Office for the courts of the relation was also fixed", explained the minister.
On the other hand, the deputies, in their interventions, urged for a "greater celerity" of the processes at court level "to guarantee a solid, reliable and effective justice" to the citizens.
The proposed Organic Law for the Courts of Appeal, the second instance courts, contains 62 articles distributed in nine chapters.
The document will now be sent to the specialized working committees of the National Assembly before returning to the plenary for the final and overall vote.
