Blogs Hisham Ben Khamsa 27 July 2022

Mr. President, we are the owners of Tunisia!

On July 4th, when we saw the first draft of the new constitution, I exonerated President Saied for such a calamity, putting the sole responsibility on the professors of constitutional law he had chosen. They were supposed to be the sources and the guarantors of the new constitution wanted by the head of state. After all, he had made us believe that he had entrusted them with the solemn mission of writing a “sacred” civil text that would guarantee Tunisia’s passage into an era of dignity and decency, in total rupture with ten years of catastrophic governance carried out by scavengers of politics, of all persuasions.

Blogs Hisham Ben Khamsa 05 August 2021

We Experience the Facts. Tunisia is Our Country and We Live Here!

In what seems to be a confusing set of legal opinions, a number of jurists in Tunisia and elsewhere were unable to converge decisively on qualifying the nature of President Kais Saied’s decision to suspend the Tunisian parliament and sack the government on July 25, 2021. Technically sound arguments seem to be made on all sides. Saied on his part, based his decision on article 80 of the Tunisian constitution which allows the President to take exceptional measures “in the event of imminent peril,” and one can very well argue that a Parliament and a government that let 18,000 Tunisians die of Covid 19 in a year and a half are a peril already in place.

Blogs Hisham Ben Khamsa 30 Jul 2021

Rigidités constitutionnalistes & secret de polichinelle démocratique

Beaucoup de nos juristes les plus éminents n’ont aucun doute quant au caractère putschiste de la décision du président Kais Saied de suspendre le parlement. Et techniquement, ils ont des arguments solides. Saied pour sa part s’est basé sur l’article 80 de la constitution qui permet «l’état d’exception en cas de péril imminent» et on peut très bien argumenter qu’un gouvernement et un parlement qui laissent mourir 18000 tunisiens en un an et demi sont un péril déjà en place.