The Mozambican Judges Association (AMJ) on Wednesday, 2 July, called on the Public Prosecutor’s Office to open an investigation into alleged salary irregularities and suspected abuses of office, embezzlement, electronic fraud and corruption involving officials from the finance and public administration ministries.
The request is set out in a communiqué from the AMJ, which stated that the association submitted two formal documents to the competent organs of the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) as part of its efforts to defend and give effect to its members’ rights.
According to the AMJ, the first document, addressed to the Maputo City Attorney General’s Office, consists of a criminal complaint against officials from the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of State Administration and Civil Service, seeking to establish ‘possible criminal liability’ in connection with irregularities in the processing of judicial magistrates’ salaries and allowances.
In the complaint, the association requests an investigation into ‘facts capable’ of constituting, among other offences, abuse of office or function, embezzlement, fraud relating to electronic payment instruments, and passive corruption for lawful acts.
The AMJ noted that it is the responsibility of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, within the scope of the preliminary inquiry, to establish the facts, identify those potentially liable and ‘proceed with their appropriate legal classification’, in keeping with the principles of legality and the presumption of innocence.
The second document, addressed to the Attorney General’s Office, constitutes a request for the MP to exercise its powers of legality oversight in order to investigate the reported irregularities and, should illegality be confirmed, to compel the responsible entities to bring their conduct into compliance with the law and to restore the rights that have been violated.
According to the judges, the two initiatives cover, among other matters, deductions made to magistrates’ salaries without prior notification or known justification, the neutralisation of special incremental allowances through the reduction of the adjustment subsidy under the Unified Salary Scale (TSU), and the violation of the principle of salary irreducibility.
The association also flags a lack of objective and transparent criteria in the payment of vehicle allowances, delays and non-payment of management allowances to magistrates performing directorial, supervisory and managerial functions, as well as the failure to incorporate a number of magistrates under the resolution on the restructuring of the Professional Qualifiers for the Special Differentiated Career Schemes of the Judicial Magistracy, Administrative Magistracy and Public Prosecutor’s Office.
‘These initiatives stem from a resolution of the AMJ General Assembly, held in March 2026, which mandated the association’s leadership to activate legally available mechanisms for the effective defence of the rights and legitimate interests of judicial magistrates,’ the communiqué concludes.
The move comes at a time when the judicial magistrates’ strike has remained suspended since 2024, by decision of the AMJ General Assembly, which says it continues to be available for an institutional, serious and constructive dialogue aimed at finding solutions that comply with the law.
In August 2024, the AMJ called a strike — subsequently suspended — to demand improved working conditions and greater financial independence. Those demands were equally championed by the Mozambican Association of Public Prosecutor Magistrates.
In the list of grievances presented to the government that year, magistrates demanded financial independence, salary improvements and greater security for the profession. The judges also denounced an alleged ‘depreciation of their status’ and shortcomings in the application of the Unified Salary Scale (TSU) to their category — a scale also contested by other professional groups, including doctors and teachers.
Source: Diário Económico
Original article: https://www.diarioeconomico.co.mz/2026/09/03/economia/financas/amj-pede-investigacao-a-alegadas-irregularidades-no-pagamento-de-salarios/
