Tunisia's draft constitution was published last night. It will be put to referendum on 25 July 2022. I will be live tweeting its contents at 2pm Tunis time. watch this space.
ok here we go. first thing is that the draft constitution aims to reestablish a hyperpresidential system of government. under this system, the president has enormous powers to control other institutions. there is no balance between different branches of the state.
The draft confirms the existence of state institutions including the parliament, courts, local government, etc. but in most cases says almost nothing about how they are to operate, which means that whoever controls the levers of state can control them.
the 2022 draft provides the president with full control over the executive branch. he is solely responsible for appointing and dismissing the cabinet and the parliament has very little authority to exercise oversight.
The 2014 constitution included a chapter on local government, which included some detail on how local governments were to operate. the new draft constitution deletes that chapter and replaces it with a two line article that leaves everything to legislation.
the 2014 text established independent institutions and provided some detail on their mandate, and how their members should be appointed. Virtually all of that is gone now, with only the electoral commission remaining, but no detail on how its members are to be appointed
the 2014 constitution established a judicial council and provided some detail on how it should be appointed and its powers. the 2022 draft removes all that detail and leaves everything to legislation.
So the question becomes who will be preparing all of that legislation. the answer is that parliament's law making powers are greatly reduced and that the president has very significant law making powers.
parliament cannot draw up bills on its own. It can only suggest legislation which must then be submitted to the government which can if it wants draw up a bill. Also parliament cant pass any legislation that touch upon the president's administrative powers or on financial issues
conversely, there are many circumstances in which the president can adopt laws, including during parliament's recess period, when the parliament is dissolved, etc.
Importantly, the president also continues to exercise his current legislative power until the next parliament is elected, which means that he will be able to determine how all these institutiosn will function entirely on his own.
for example, the draft provides that members of parliament can be recalled in circumstances to be determined by the electoral law, which the president will adopt entirely on his own.
the parliament has very limited opportunity to withdraw confidence from government. a very high threshold has to be met, and if it happens twice in the same parliamentary session, the president can dissolve parliament.
so - if the president does a bad job at putting together state policy and at putting together a government, his response can be to dissolve parliament, which is a power he can exercise with complete discretion.
conversely there is no opportunity to hold the president accountable in any way. no opportunity to recall the president and no meaningful corrective mechanism in case there are problems with performance.
In terms of religion and state, religion will play an important role. the state is formally responsible for realising Islam's objectives, education is based on islamic identity, and the president must be muslim.
in terms of rights and freedoms, no major or significant changes, except a relative regression of article 49 (the limitation clause) which now no longer mentions proportionality and also does not state that limitations must be justified in a democratic society.
right to form associations is confirmed, but the courts, the police, the army cannot go on strike.
the provision on state of emergency is maintained almost exactly as it was under the 2014 text. If the same interpretation is maintained, the president will be allowed to declare a state of emergency unilaterally and can exercise whatever powers he wants for as long as he wants
there's really not that much else to say. altogether the text seeks to establish a classic hyperpresidential system, and provides a single person with enormous power with very few corresponding accountability mechanisms.
it is a very traditional, old fashioned vision of how the state should function. there are no meaningful innovations. its just a return to a simpler form of the state where one person has enormous power, with all the risks that that entails.
for those who were hoping that the constitution would establish a ground-up democratic system (along the lines of what the president said he would do when he was running for office) there is nothing in the draft that suggests that that will happen
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