Mozambique government fails to provide ‘urgent solution’ to judges’ demands

Mozambique’s government says it has no immediate response to demands from judges planning a strike from August 9 and that a solution must come from a review of the law on magistrates.

“This is not one of those problems for which we can have immediate solutions, and at the moment there are almost none,” Mozambique’s Minister of Justice, Constitutional and Religious Affairs Helena KidKida told reporters on the sidelines of the resumption of parliamentary sessions.

The Mozambique Association of Judges (AMJ) announced on Tuesday a month-long nationwide general strike from August 9 due to the government’s lack of response to the class’ demands, the association said.

“The debate on the revision of the Magistrates’ Act is already scheduled for this 10th ordinary session here in the Assembly of the Republic. We believe that it is from there that we will be able to find solutions to the various impasses in which the judicial class finds itself,” said the Minister of Justice, who is also a judge by profession.

Helena Kida insisted that the judges’ complaints could not be resolved urgently and that the proposal to review the class’s status would have to be defended in parliament.

“I will have to defend this proposal here in parliament, the most important thing is that we have always interacted with the highest judicial body, that is, with the party that expresses the concerns of judges, and, as far as possible, we respond,” he emphasized. Kida.

The minister noted that the government had received a notebook of demands from the judges, but did not go into detail about the contents of the document.

AMJ stated that “the concerns expressed in its statement of demands have not been met” and “no sign has been given by government authorities to resolve the issue, the general assembly (…) decided by a majority vote to declare a general strike of national scope.”

The General Assembly will meet again this week to determine the details of the process, including the implementation of minimum services that judges must provide during the strike.

AMJ reports that the main purpose of the meeting was to assess the state of the process of defending the rights of judges, which officially began in May last year with the sending of a book of complaints to the competent authorities.

Mozambican judges complain of an alleged “humiliation of their status” and shortcomings in the implementation of the New Salary Schedule (TSU), which has been the target of strong opposition from other professional classes such as doctors and teachers, who have even gone on strike to protest delays and salary cuts.

Its launch, approved in 2022 with the aim of eliminating asymmetries and controlling the state’s wage fund, has led to an increase in wages of around 36%: from an expenditure of 11.6 billion meticais per month (€169 million per month) to 15.8 billion meticais per month (€231 million per month).

The TSU cost about $28.5 billion (€410 million), “more than expected,” according to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) assessment of the Mozambique aid program that Lusa consulted in January.