Mozambique considers prisoner transfers to strengthen human rights

Mozambique’s parliament said on Friday that prisoner transfer agreements approved with three countries would ensure prisoners’ human rights are strengthened by serving their sentences in their home countries.

The Assembly of the Republic of Mozambique on Wednesday ratified by consensus and definitively the prisoner transfer agreements that Maputo signed with the governments of Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi, all border countries and southern Africa.

The Chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Human Rights and Legality, António Boene, told Luce this Friday that the aforementioned agreements will strengthen the protection of the fundamental rights of convicted persons, allowing foreigners arrested in Mozambique to serve their sentences in their country of origin and vice versa.

“In states where democratic law operates and human rights are upheld, one of the main purposes of imprisonment is the social reintegration and resocialization of the convicted person, and the best way to ensure this purpose is to serve the sentence in close proximity to the family and community to which he returns after prison,” Boen said.

A prison abroad makes it difficult or impossible to have contact with family and the means of social rehabilitation necessary for a life in freedom, which is usually in the country of birth of the convicted person, due to the additional penalty of expulsion after serving the sentence. fulfilled, continued the president of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Human Rights and Legality and a member of the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo), the party that holds the majority of seats in parliament.

At a ratification session on Wednesday, Frelimo said the agreements accelerate judicial cooperation between signatory countries and benefit prisoners.

“We expect the agreements to be implemented because we know there are many outstanding extradition requests, but we needed to be sure they would not cause problems,” Felix Silvia, the House majority whip, said in a statement to the House press .

The Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), the main opposition party, also defended the strengthening of judicial cooperation as one of the main benefits of the above-mentioned agreements.

“There are many Mozambicans in Zimbabwe or Zambia and vice versa who would like to serve their sentences in their country, in Mozambique,” but they are not allowed to do so because of the lack of a bilateral agreement, said Alfredo Magumisse, a lawmaker in the largest political opposition force.

Fernando Bismarck, a representative of the parliamentary group of the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM, the third largest party), noted that the agreements give prisoners the freedom to choose the country in which to serve their sentences.

These are agreements that give convicts the opportunity “at the request or request of the convict to choose where to serve their sentence,” Bismarck said.