Mozambique: Constitutional Council invalidates regulation authorizing internet shutdowns

Mozambique's Constitutional Council (CC), the country's highest court for constitutional and electoral matters, has just declared a government telecommunications regulation unconstitutional. According to an AIM dispatch relayed by AllAfrica from Maputo, this text granted the National Communications Institute (INCM) the power to block internet access in the event of an "imminent risk to public security or state security." The source specifies neither the adoption date of the contested regulation, nor the detailed legal grounds adopted by the CC, nor the procedure that led to this referral—leaving several questions open at this stage. This decision comes at a time when several countries in Africa have resorted to internet shutdowns in recent years during periods of political or electoral tension, a practice regularly denounced by digital rights organizations. For Mozambican citizens, businesses, and mobile money operators, the invalidation of this discretionary power provides an additional safeguard against the arbitrary interruption of services essential to the digital economy. From an analytical standpoint, this ruling illustrates the capacity of a Mozambican judicial institution to exercise oversight over the executive branch on a sensitive matter touching on both state security and digital rights—a potentially reassuring signal for investors and partners of the country.