THE LEGAL EDUCATION IN MOZAMBIQUE

Armando César Dimande, Eduardo Mondlane Law School, Mozambique

 

 

 

 

I. BRIEF REMARKS ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE LAW EDUCATION IN MOZAMBIQUE

 

 

            1.The Eduardo Mondlane Law School[1]

 

        Mozambique is a developing country situated in east Africa with 17 million inhabitants. The country became independent from Portugal in June 1975.

 

Schools for higher education were first established in Mozambique in 1962, when Portugal approved legislation concerning creation of Universities in some of its colonies, namely Angola and Mozambique.  In 1963, a very limited number of courses were defined for the then Universidade de Lourenco Marques, today Eduardo Mondlane University, but law was not included. The Portuguese colonial regime had had bad experience with lawyers in Portugal because they tended to challenge the regime and Portugal did not want to train lawyers from its colonies because it was conscious that soon or later they would demand independence of their countries. For the forgoing reasons the law school in Mozambique was only created in January 1975, soon before independence.

 

 Because at the time of independence almost all lawyers and judges where Portuguese and they decided to fled the country, there was an urgent need to train Mozambican judges and lawyer to replace them.[2] It was a big challenge for those who were appointed to prepare and organize the opening of the law school. In fact, Mozambique was in the transition period for its independence.

 

 It was hard to determine what kind of law could be taught, who the teachers would be and what kind of lawyers could be trained for the nation that was about to be born, since the codes and the laws in force were all Portuguese codes and laws. Moreover what Constitutional Law could be taught since the Constitution of Mozambique had not yet been drafted? The only solution that remained for the organizing group was to predict what kind of transformations would occur in the near future and from there try to organize a curriculum in such a way that students could learn the basic concepts of law and, at the same time, be prepared to adequate and apply those concepts to the emerging reality.

 

Professors had to be found among the very few lawyers and judges who accepted to teach in part-time basis. Some of them had no teaching experience. Foreign lawyers who were already working in other Government institutions under cooperation agreements with their countries were invited to teach at the Law School.[3]   

 

 

  The students

 

The requirement for admission at the law school was the high school degree. But there were few Mozambicans with these qualifications.[4] On the other hand, there were a good number of young Portuguese descendents who had a high school degree and wanted to study law.[5] Therefore, Portuguese descendents and some Mozambicans who had completed the high school degree or former priest trainees constituted the first group of students of the law school in 1975.[6] Many of these students were over forty years old.

 

   The course was designed to last four years after which the students could earn a law degree, but due to the shortage of judges and prosecutors, after two years the students were required to work as judges or prosecutors throughout the country. In effect, despite their lack of experience, they were the only people who could resolve the disputes brought to courts.[7]

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Due to political reasons the Law School was closed from 1983 to 1987.[8] Because Eduardo Mondlane Law School was the only law school in the country no lawyer was formed in Mozambique during that period.

 

 In early 1987, due to pressure by those students who were forced to interrupt their studies in 1983 and due to political changes in the country, a decision was made by the Government to reopen the Law School. There was need to determine a new curriculum and the profile of lawyers to be graduated from the Law School. Thus, former law professors and prominent judges and lawyers prepared a curriculum proposal that was submitted to the Academic Council of the University for approval.[9] The new curriculum was approved and the Law School was reopened in August 1987.[10]

 

In 1987 priority was given to those students who had interrupted the course in 1983. In effect, no first year students were admitted in 1987. Only in 1988 ninety new students were admitted in the first year. These students were selected through an admission test, a procedure that is used for admission of students to the Eduardo Mondlane University. Since 1989 one hundred candidates are admitted to the Law School every year.

 

 

2. Other Law Schools.

 

From 1996 to 1998 three private law schools were opened.[11] Each one admits fifty to sixty candidates each year. Because of lack of larger infrastructures the new schools are not expected to increase the number of admissions. The emergence of new law schools in Mozambique is a response to the incapacity of Eduardo Mondlane Law School to increase the number of admissions due to lack of infrastructures.

 

Because the tuition is relatively higher compared to Eduardo Mondlane Law School very few people can go to these private universities. On the other hand, only local candidates can go to the new schools because unlike the Eduardo Mondlane Law School they do not provide housing for the students.

 

Concerning the curriculum, although there are some slight differences in some of the courses taught curriculum of these private law schools is basically the same as the curriculum of the Eduardo Mondlane Law School. In effect, the professors who prepared the curriculum and teach in these law schools are basically the same. Like the Eduardo Mondlane Law school the duration of the law course in the three private law schools is five years. Therefore, no students have been graduated from those schools so far.

 

 

II. THE EDUARDO MONDLANE LAW SCHOOL TODAY

 

Currently the Eduardo Mondlane Law School has seven hundred and seventy students and 39 professors. The students come from all over the country. The candidates are required to pass an admission test on the subjects of History and Portuguese.[12] An Admission Commission is in charge of the admission test nation wide. Year after year the number of candidates has been increasing dramatically. In 1999 alone the number of candidates for the Law School was one thousand and three hundred. Of this number only one hundred were admitted. Due to the lack of infrastructures the number of students admitted cannot be increased.[13]   

 

 

 Although from 1988 to 1992 70% of the students were between twenty-five and forty years old, today the situation is different. In fact, since 1993 younger students who finish high school apply to the Law School. In 1999 65% of the students were below twenty-five years of age.

 

1. Graduates

 

There are about 800 lawyers in Mozambique of which about 92% graduated from the Eduardo Mondlane Law School.  Fifteen students graduated from the Law School in 1981.  These are the first students graduated from the law school after it was opened in 1975. Almost all of them were placed in very important positions in the Government institutions and others were appointed provincial judges.

 

Currently the average number of students graduated from the Law school each year is 60. Many of these graduates go to private sector where they can get better salaries compared to government wages. Because there are very few lawyers in the country fourth year and fifth year law students are hired both by Government institutions and private entities. This is a big constrain to the law school since some of these students hardly finish the law school. Other graduates are appointed judges or prosecutors after a short-term training course organized by the Supreme Court and the Attorney General Office.

 

Because salary in the University is poor very few graduates are willing to stay at the Law School as associates, although a program of incentives like scholarship for post-graduate studies broad was introduced to attract to the Law School.  For the same reason 70% of the professors who teach at the Law School are part-time teachers. 

 

 

2. Exchange programs

 

As the biggest and the oldest law school in Mozambique Eduardo Mondlane Law School has been supporting the emerging private law schools by providing materials to professors of those law school and by permitting access to its library to students from the new schools.

 

Regarding international cooperation, since 1990 Eduardo Mondlane Law School has a program of exchange with the University of Lisbone, Portugal, under which three professors from Lisbone teach in the Law School. Under the same agreement three associates from Eduardo Mondlane are awarded scholarship for post-graduation in the University of Lisbone. The same kind of exchange was established in 1995 with the University of Poitiers, France, and with the University of Triest of Italy. There is also an exchange program of students with the Center of Human Rights of the University of Pretoria. Currently the Law School is in contact with the University of Wisconsin Law School to set up a program of exchange.  

 

It is expected that over the next ten years there will be about 2.200 lawyers in Mozambique.