The national Moot Court, third in a series, was organized by the Human Rights Centre of the Law Faculty of the Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM) together with the “A Politécnica” University. Sixteen law students attended the four-day Moot Court supported by UNDP and other development agencies.

“We had to prepare our arguments and present them in order to win but mostly to convince the court. I learnt more about Human Rights, and started developing an interest towards the subject”, Ivanize explained.

Ivanize said she learnt the importance of managing all the relevant information to present a case at Court: “Mostly it was very useful to have the chance to have access to the African legislation used at SADC Tribunal. Being able to have access to information related to fundamental rights was a big asset for me.”

Ivanize Fita, like most of other students we met during the Moot Court, appreciated very much the opportunity to participate in this event. For them it is a great preparation for working life in the real world.

On the bases of the event, the following recommendations were made by the students in order to further develop the national Moot Courts conducted by universities:

• Better preparation for the students before attending Moot Court;
• Pocket money for the students;
• Universities that have more than one Faculty of Law should do an internal pre-Moot Court before they send a team to a Regional or National;
• Organise the Regional Moot-Courts for better preparation of the National;
• More and better coordination from the Human Rights Centre at UEM and attending universities.

The third Moot Court is one of the activities supported by UNDP in the Civil Society Empowerment Project where the Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM) is one of the implementing partners.

More about the Civil Society Empowerment Project http://www.undp.org.mz/en/What-we-do/Poverty-and-HIV-AIDS/Ongoing-Projects/Empowerment-of-Civil-Society-Organizations