In Tunisia, president issues decree to create new provisional supreme judiciary council

Tunisia’s president has issued a decree establishing a new provisional Supreme Judiciary Council, effectively replacing the body he abolished and granting himself additional powers to control the country’s top judicial organisation. The decree, published on the official gazette on Sunday, says the president controls the selection, appointment, promotion, and transfer of judges and can act in certain circumstances as a disciplinary body in charge of removals. [...] It also forbids judges from going on strike, a form of dissent used to protest President Kais Saied’s February 6 announcement that the council would become “a thing of the past”. [Last week] Saied had appeared to be backpedaling when Justice Minister Leila Jaffel told national television the judicial body would be reformed rather than abolished. But Anas Hamadi, president of the Association of Tunisian Judges, told Al Jazeera that Sunday’s presidential decree meant Saied abolished the “legitimate council” and “installed a new council obedient to the executive power” despite the absence of legal grounds in doing so.
Read the full article here: Al Jazeera