Translated from Portuguese. The Portuguese version prevails. Ler em português
Address by the Attorney General of the Republic, Pedro Mendes de Carvalho.
Today marks eighteen years of an institution that was born invested with the noblest and most demanding mission that can be entrusted to a court: that of guaranteeing, as the court of last resort, the defence and the supremacy of the Constitution. It is therefore with great honour and a deep sense of responsibility that, on behalf of the Attorney General’s Office and of the Angolan Public Prosecution Service, I join in this celebration.
Honourable President
Nations are not built on written laws alone. They are built with institutions capable of giving life to those laws. They are built with men and women who, day after day, place the Constitution above any private interest. The Constitutional Court is, in Angola, one of those institutions. It is not merely the supreme interpreter of the Fundamental Law. It is, above all, the guardian of the values that underpin the Rule of Law; That underpin the dignity of the human person; That underpin the separation of powers, equality before the law and the guarantee of fundamental rights. Over these eighteen years, this High Court has consolidated its case law, deepened constitutional culture and, above all, strengthened citizens’ confidence in Justice.
Your Excellencies,
The history of democracies teaches us that freedom is not preserved by decree. It is preserved through the constant vigilance of institutions, through the independence of the courts and through the courage to declare the law, even when the law is hard to hear. That is why the existence of a strong and technically robust Constitutional Court constitutes a fundamental pillar of the Rule of Law, contributing to institutional stability, to legal certainty and to strengthening citizens’ confidence in the institutions.
The Public Prosecution Service shares with this High Court the mission of defending democratic legality. We are partners in the defence of the same cause: The cause of the Constitution; The cause of the Rule of Law; The cause of the Angolan people.
Your Excellencies
On this date, I reaffirm the commitment of the Attorney General’s Office to strengthening institutional cooperation, to modernising the instruments for the review of constitutionality and to the effective protection of human rights. To conclude, I would say the following: Constitutions do not live in texts. They live in the institutions that defend them. They live in the decisions that give them shape. They live in the trust that citizens place in those whose mission it is to apply them. For eighteen years, the Constitutional Court has known how to honour that trust. May the years ahead be worthy of this path:
A path marked by independence; by wisdom and by an unwavering commitment to the constitutional values that unite us as a Nation.
Blessings upon the Constitutional Court. Blessings upon its Justices.