Law of laws: a transparent framework to produce laws in Mozambique
To date, Mozambique has not had an established or standardized legal framework for stakeholder consultation while creating laws or regulation. Typically, government ministries draft legislation themselves, asking for inputs from only a few key stakeholders.
From 2019-2021, through SPEED+ and SPEED, USAID provided technical support to help the Government of Mozambique to draft this law, called the Law of Laws, and support consultations that contributed to improving transparency and advancing citizen engagement in the lawmaking process. The technical support from USAID allowed the MJACR and the Parliament to develop a draft law that defines principles, regulations and procedures for legislation, to prepare the manual of procedures that served as a basis for training the jurists of these institutions, and finally to convene to harmonize the final document now approved by the Council of Ministers of Mozambique.
From 13-17 February, lawmakers from the Ministry of Justice, Constitutional and Religious Affairs (MJACR), Institute for the Promotion of Justice (IPAJ), Assembly of the Republic (AR) attended training on the legislation, demonstrating the interest in moving this law through the legislative process, and representing an opportunity for enshrining consultations with citizens and citizen engagement in the law-making process for all future laws. (This training was not funded or organized by USAID SPEED.)