After the Embassy closed the day before due to a staff strike, the service resumed yesterday at 4, Avenue Raphaël, according to the notice to users dated March 8, 2023 signed by Ambassador Rija Rajohnson.
Communiqué
On the other hand, the Head of Mission would not be the real signatory of the press release published on March 5 according to which “The Embassy of Madagascar will conduct an internal investigation to identify those responsible for this letter and reserves the right to sue them for defamation and illegal use of its official letterhead and its stamp in France”. The place of the alleged offense being Paris, we are entitled – literally and figuratively – to ask ourselves before the jurisdiction of which country, the proceedings would be initiated. Not to mention extraterritoriality, a principle of international law which is not to simplify the procedure.
Permanent threat
For Embassy staff, “the fact of putting forward an internal investigation and legal proceedings illustrates the permanent threat brandished each time by the First Counsellor”. In any case, the strikers also have their “ills” to say in relation to “illegal residence in the Chancellery and illegality of retention status”.
Administrative act
Originally, the appointment of Mishou as First Counselor was effectively flawed, not to say illegal, because such a position is reserved in principle for a diplomat by training who generally has years of career in the profession but who is also and above all still in activity, i.e. who has not yet reached retirement age. From where obviously “illegal status of continued employment” mentioned by the strikers. Who are entitled to seize the Council of State, raising an exception of illegality since the three-month period to request the stay of execution and the cancellation of his decree of appointment, has largely expired. In any case, it is not an act of government, but an administrative act which does not benefit from jurisdictional immunity.
Parallelism of forms
In any case, the act can be repealed, by virtue of the principle of parallelism of forms. As was the case for Rinah Rakotomanga, whose appointment as Counselor in the same Embassy was revoked by a simple decree from the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Richard Randriamandrato. The power to repeal the appointment of the First Counselor in question belongs to the current head of Malagasy diplomacy, Yvette Sylla, who is currently in Doha for the Action Program for the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) ) for the decade 2022-2031.
honorable amends
The fate of the First Counselor will therefore be known after the return to the country of the Minister of Foreign Affairs who could refer, if this is not already the case, to the President of the Republic insofar as diplomacy is one of the areas reserved by the Head of State. In the present case, it is not a question of foreign policy as such, but of a personal problem which does not have to be settled at the level of the Council of Ministers where one does not exclude a communication verbally on the situation within the Embassy of Madagascar in Paris, where Mishou would have made amends honorable in front of the personnel. The latter persists and signs for his resignation or the repeal of his appointment, under penalty of a renewable strike.
RO
