The Attorney General of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau notified for a hearing, on the 29th, seven judges of the Supreme Court of Justice (STJ) to clarify the outline of their last plenary session, advanced this Friday (26.06) a judicial source.
According to the same source, cited by the Lusa agency, the STJ’s judge advisers Rui Nené, Fernando Té, Juca Nancassa, were summoned by a note from the Attorney General of the Republic, Fernando Gomes, to the Superior Council of the Judiciary. Lima André, Ladislau Embassa, Osiris Pina and Mamadu Saido Baldé.
The source stressed that the position on whether the judges concerned will respond to the summons or not will only be known at the meeting of the Superior Council for the Judiciary, which has not yet been scheduled.
What is at stake
A plenary session of the STJ ended up aborted on 17 June, when on the table was the examination of the electoral litigation brought in that instance by Domingos Simões Pereira, a candidate declared by the Electoral Commission as having been defeated in the presidential elections of December 2019.
Fernando Gomes, new Attorney General of Guinea-Bissau
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Six of the seven judges now summoned to appear at the Prosecutor’s Office accused, at the time, the vice president of the organ, Rui Nené, of having rendered the session unfeasible by refusing to proceed with the work, for having left the plenary room.
“In view of the situation, the plenary was rendered unfeasible, because it is a collegial body that can only function chaired by the president or vice president. Consequently, the appreciation of the draft of the judgment previously distributed to the advising judges is aborted”, says a minute of the meeting released to the press at the time.
Unprecedented call
In the absence of the president, Paulo Sanhá, currently undergoing medical treatment in Portugal, Rui Nené is the head of the Supreme Court of Justice, which in Guinea-Bissau also plays the role of electoral court.
The judicial source told Lusa that it was “an unprecedented summons” in Guinea-Bissau, with Supreme Court judges called to testify at the Attorney General’s Office.
On several occasions, Guinean President Umaro Sissoco Embaló accused the Supreme Court judges of being “corrupt and bandits”, assuring that this situation will end.
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