The Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, agreed to postopone until 31 May de depositing of the reviewed text of the Constitution with the Standing Commission, the parliament's governing body, at the request of the ruling Frelimo party's deputies in the Ad-Hoc Commission.
This document was initially scheduled to be deposited by 10 May, but the Frelimo deputies presented, then, an addenda to that document, that the Renamo-Electoral Union's deputies accepted, along with the entire text.
Thus, the commission had agreed that text had been passed by consensus by the entire commission.
However, on 13 May, the closing day of the tenth session, the Frelimo deputies asked for more time, until 31 May, to study more closely some of the matters in the document.
It took a vote to approve this request. Of the 228 deputies in the room, all of the 128 Frelimo deputies present voted for it, against 98 of the Renamo-Electoral opposition coalition, with two abstentions from those belonging to none of the two groups.
After the closing of the session, the chief of the Frelimo parliamentary group, Manuel Tome, explained that the main point that, although it had been agreed upon in the commission, his group felt that it needed more studying, was that concerning the creation of the Constitutional Tribunal, to replace the recently created Constitutional Council.
Tome explained that "a Constitution must be long standing, and there should be much care to make it solid and harmonious, because it must be understood as not to serve only Frelimo or Renamo, or any party".
He noted that a constitution is the "Mother Law", and it should not be changed every now and again, hence the need to make sure that this one will be durable.
Tome also noted that, the existing Constitutional Council, enshrined in the 1990 Constitution, was only approved and created in this legislature, and it is not healthy to create institutions and change them even before they are consolidated.
"We need more time to make solid proposals", he added, stressing that the question is not only reviewing separate articles in the constitution, because after that, one must go through it again, and make sure that all articles are harmonised.
Tome recalled that it was the opposition that, arguing that the 1990 Constituion gave too much power to the President, asked for its revision, but barred its passing, when the document had been discussed and approved by consensus at the commission.
In this legislature "we started again revieweing the already revised version, not that of 1990. A Constitution must be durable", said Tome.
This matter is to be discussed in an extraordinary session, due between the second fortnight of August and the first half of September this year.
Fonte: AIM
