Press Freedom em Moçambique: The case of the influence of political power towards judicial power

Abstract

This article approaches the relationship between political power and the judiciary in cases of violations of freedom of expression and, above all, of the press. Despite this guarantee and constitutional pluralism, in the Mozambican legal order, direct and indirect forms of limiting freedom of expression and of the press, even of a legal nature, persist. To this end, there is a clear differentiation between the actions of the Public Prosecutor's Office and of court judges. Freedom of opinion and expression, including the freedom to “receive and disseminate, without regard to borders, information and ideas by any means of expression” is one of the basic civil and political rights, which is formulated in all respective rights instruments as the Human Rights of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and the CRM. Through the analysis of practical cases regarding trials against journalists, editors and owners of Mozambican newspapers, this research shows that the influence of political power into judiciál power is yet considerable, although not always uniform, changing according to the context (inside or outside Maputo) as well as the contingent political situation.