On 29 July 2026, Mozambique’s Constitutional Council declared unconstitutional several provisions of the Telecommunications Traffic Control Regulation that authorised extensive monitoring, data collection, service suspension and technical intervention in telecommunications networks.
In Judgment No. 6/CC/2026, the Constitutional Council found that the Council of Ministers exceeded its regulatory authority by approving, through Decree No. 48/2025 of 16 December 2025, measures that substantially restricted constitutionally protected rights.
The invalidated provisions granted the National Communications Institute of Mozambique powers that included monitoring telecommunications traffic, requesting information from operators, suspending services in cases of suspected fraud, issuing binding technical instructions and intervening directly in operators’ networks using its own technology. One provision authorised the regulator to adopt “any other measures”, creating a potentially unlimited scope for administrative intervention.
The Constitutional Council ruled that the measures affected freedom of expression and information, privacy and the inviolability of communications. Because restrictions on fundamental rights fall within the exclusive legislative competence of the Assembly of the Republic, the Government could not introduce them through an executive regulation. The Court found the provisions organically unconstitutional for violating separation of powers and reservation of law. O Pais reported that 18 elements of the regulation were invalidated.
The ruling followed sustained civil society advocacy. On 29 January 2026, the Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (CDD) petitioned Mozambique’s Ombudsman, arguing that the regulation established mass and indiscriminate surveillance by enabling monitoring, personal-data and metadata collection, administrative suspension of communications and direct intervention in networks without effective judicial control or an adequate parliamentary legal basis. The Ombudsman accepted the substance of the petition and, on 17 February 2026, requested abstract constitutional review.