Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed signed, on Saturday, a decree-law creating a provisional Superior Council of the Judiciary which will replace the existing council, the country’s highest judicial body, while the Ennahda movement and activists opposing the head of the state called for demonstrations on Sunday to denounce its policy.
The Tunisian Presidency indicated in a press release published Saturday evening on its official Facebook page that Kaïs Saïed signed the decree relating to the creation of the Superior Council of the Provisional Magistracy, after having announced, a week ago, that the current council had become “a matter of the past”.
The Tunisian Presidency indicated that Saïed had held a meeting on Saturday evening at the Carthage Palace with the Minister of Justice, Leila Jaffal, in the presence of the head of government Najla Bouden, during which he renewed his respect for the independence of justice.
Saïed stressed the need to purge the country of all aspects of corruption indicating that this necessarily involves the establishment of a fair judicial system in which all individuals are equal before the law, the statement said.
The Tunisian President affirmed that “silence is culpable in the face of injustice, emphasizing that this is the reason why the Superior Council of the Judiciary was dissolved and replaced by another, temporarily, in order to put an end to the impunity”.
For its part, the Ennahda movement (53 deputies out of 217 deputies in the frozen parliament) called on its supporters to take to the streets on Sunday to participate in a protest rally against the decisions of the head of state.
In a statement made public, the movement called on its supporters and all national forces to demonstrate massively in rue Mohammed V against Saïed’s policy.
For their part, the activists of the “Citizens Against the Coup” initiative and a coordination of opposition parties called the “Democratic Initiative” also called for a protest rally to defend the independence of justice and denounce the policy of the President accused of wanting to overthrow the Constitution and seeking to restore the dictatorship.
For its part, the Superior Council of the Judiciary refuses its dissolution “in the absence of a constitutional and legal mechanism which authorizes it, ensuring that with its current composition, it is “the only legitimate constitutional institution representing the judicial power” in the country.
The Association of Tunisian Magistrates also called on all magistrates to mobilize and commit to confronting any “targeting” of the judicial authority and to fight for its independence and “not to submit it” to the executive power.
The (independent) Association announced, in a press release consulted by Anadolu Agency, that it “has formed a crisis unit to consult on the management of the next phase and coordinate the next movements”.
She, in this context, called on the President “to reconsider the decision to dissolve the Superior Council of the Judiciary and to authorize the Minister of the Interior to immediately lift the blockade imposed on the premises of the Council.
The association held Saïed entirely responsible for “the preservation of the judges’ files and all electronic recordings and media within the council”.
She considered that “the dissolution of the Council as an independent constitutional institution is a direct interference in the judicial system, an abolition of guarantees and mechanisms of judicial independence in accordance with the Constitution and international standards”.
She expressed “her refusal to form an alternative structure to the Judicial Council” and rejected “all pressure and threats against magistrates, defamation campaigns and accusations of corruption without any evidence”.
Tunisia has been in the throes of a political crisis since the Head of State decided on July 25 to dismiss the Head of Government, Hichem Mechichi, to freeze the powers of Parliament for a period of 30 days, and to lift the immunity of deputies in the context of emergency measures. Kaïs Saïed had also announced that he was arrogating executive power to himself with the help of a government whose leader he would appoint and proceeded in the following days to a series of dismissals of ministers and senior officials in the apparatus of the state.
The Tunisian President had decided to abolish the provisional body for the control of the constitutionality of bills, to legislate by presidential decrees and to exercise executive power with the help of a government, while observers and political parties believe that the new presidential arrangements constitute “a coup against the Constitution”.
The majority of parties rejected Saïed’s decisions, extended on August 24. Some parties have called these decisions a “coup against the Constitution”, while other political parties consider them a “restoration of the process”, against the backdrop of political, economic, and health crises (Covid-19).
