Equatorial Guinea
Opposition denounces Equatoguinean justice reform

afrol News, 14 January - As the government of Equatorial Guinea has been holding a national conference on the state of the country's justice system, opposition groups say this exercise was just another manner of giving a false impression of legality abroad. Also the December presidential elections, internationally condemned as fraudulent, had only served this purpose. 

According to statements from the government in Malabo, the government of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema was to hold a national conference last week on "Equatorial Guinea's juridical system and the state of law and order." The official idea had been to use recommendations from the meeting to help improve the justice system and strengthen the rule of law, according to government sources quoted by the AFP news agency.

Participants in the conference were to include judges, lawyers, other legal experts and representatives of civil society, the government sources reported. The national opposition however was not invited to participate. The key problems of the Equatoguinean justice system, systematic violations of human rights by the government, thus were not debated.

Samuel Mbá Mombé, spokesman of the exiled opposition group RENAGE, noted that the conference was nonsense, "since something nonexistent, such as the state of law and order in Equatorial Guinea, cannot be consolidated." Mr Mbá held that this conference only was a "new circus spectacle of the regime for international consumption. Alone the title of the conference consists of utter nonsense."

The opposition group points to earlier statements made by the UN to underline the validity of its arguments. In March last year, the Special Representative of the UN Commission on Human Rights for Equatorial Guinea, the Colombian Gustavo Gallón Giraldo, had expressed himself in a similar way. "The administration of justice is not so much hampered as blatantly disregarded by the executive authorities," according to a report by the UN representative, whose mission was abolished last year. 

The judiciary in Equatorial Guinea has also been widely criticised internationally since the last report of Mr Gallón. Last year, 70 prominent members of the opposition were sentenced to prison terms of between six and 20 years for having planned a coup d'état, for which no evidence could be produced, not even after torturing the alleged plotters. In December, the judiciary was reported to have been totally at the government's service when securing the "re-election" of President Obiang. 

According to the RENAGE spokesman, the common denominator of these observations is the legal insecurity for Equatorial Guinea's citizens and impunity for those violating human rights and those assuring that the situation does not change. The situation of total legal insecurity that reigns in Equatorial Guinea is not a new one, but has been the state of the art during the 23 years of the regime headed by President Obiang, according to Mr Mbá, who again can refer to Mr Gallón's last report. 

During the justice conference organised last weekend in Malabo, President Obiang on the other had affirmed that "the problem is not in the lack of laws but in their lacking application." According to RENAGE, the judiciary in Equatorial Guinea totally lacks virtuosity and predictability. "It is a fact documented with sufficient clearness that, in this country, the judiciary is at the mercy of the Executive, which dominates it and subjugates and, mainly, at the mercy of the moods of the President of the Republic - the First Magistrate of the Nation." 

Sources: Based on RENAGE, govt reports, UN and afrol archives 

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