Bulletin ASL 200 jours après l’article 80

Two hundred days after the triggering of Article 80 by the President of the Republic Kais Saied, the hypotheses raised by the two previous bulletins -issued respectively 50 and 100 days after the onset of the state of exception- namely that of a “break in continuity”1, an “erosion of the rule of law and a threat to freedoms”2 are becoming more and more confirmed every day.

The authoritarian nature of the practice of power introduced by the President, who, since the so-called Decree 117, has had all the executive and legislative powers in his hands, is becoming established.

At the same time, the dynamic of concentration of powers is extending to the judiciary with the dissolution of the High Judicial Council, replaced by an interim council where the executive is now entitled to appointment and dismissal. The unilateralism of his decision-making also continues: a supplementary Finance Act promulgated by decree3; approaches to the IMF that were dogged by the lack of transparency; and a ‘roadmap’, that was finally announced in December. According to the latter, a national consultation (already underway) will take place from 1st January to 20th March 2022.

Subsequently, a committee, appointed by the President, will study the proposals resulting from the consultations and translate them into a draft of constitutional reforms, which will in turn be submitted to a referendum on 25th of July 2022. Finally, on 17th December 2022, legislative elections will be held – on the basis of a new electoral law that is still vague.

It is therefore possible to expect a return to work of the Assembly of People’s Representatives (ARP) in the first half of 2023.

While the upcoming deadlines are certainly clearer than they were in the weeks following the initiation of Article 80 on the one hand and the enactment of Decree 117 on the other, yet they are nonetheless worrying. What about the democratic value of the national consultation in which so far few Tunisians and very few Tunisian Women have participated? Who will be in charge of ‘synthesizing’ the results of the consultation and who will write the new Constitution? Will the July referendum not rather – as such tools often instrumentalized – be the plebiscite of a President seeking to establish his legitimacy?

At the same time, the civic space is shrinking: military trials, announcements of a new alarming Decree regarding the regulation the associations, heavy-handed repression of the 14th January protests, threats and attacks against civil society actors, journalists, against the judiciary (dissolution and substitution of the High Judicial Council) …
Through a quantitative and qualitative analysis, this bulletin, in its third edition since July 25th, is intended to present a comprehensive and factual view of the events that occurred within two hundred days of the initiation of Article 80.

This bulletin, resulting from the monitoring work carried out by the Alliance for Security and Liberties, focuses on the last 100 days of political news4 in Tunisia while presenting cumulative data over the entire 200 days.