The Tunisian National Bar Association has decided to engage in a series of protest movements, including wearing the red badge, organizing sit-ins, and boycotting sessions, in protest against the restrictions and violations practiced against them.
The Tunisian Bar Association said in a statement that the National Bar Association Council decided to wear the red badge starting next Monday until Friday “in protest against the restrictions imposed on lawyers while they are performing their duties.”
Wearing a red badge in Tunisia symbolizes protest against a certain matter, but without stopping work.
The union announced that it will organize protests in front of the Palace of Justice in Tunis and at the headquarters of all primary courts on September 18, in addition to boycotting judicial mobilizations (to defend defendants) for a week starting on September 16, “to demand reform of the justice system and respond to the professional demands of Tunisian lawyers as soon as possible,” according to the statement.
The Syndicate Council noted that it had observed “serious violations against lawyers while performing their duties, including depriving some of them of the right to review judicial files, the right to plead, and the right to visit their clients, as well as restricting them, deliberately insulting them, assaulting them, and violating their dignity while performing their duties in security and prison units, and threatening others with prosecution and criminal penalties on the occasion of their pleading in some cases.”
He pointed out that “the continued transfer of judges and their appointment to other job plans based on mere work memoranda from the Minister of Justice undermines the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law,” according to the statement.
He stressed that “respecting the right to defense is not just a formal legal procedure, but rather a fundamental pillar of a fair trial,” calling on all concerned parties involved in judicial affairs to “adhere to and commit to respecting the right to defense and fair and impartial trial procedures.”
The Council held the Ministry of Justice responsible for what it called “the deteriorating situation of the judiciary and the legal profession as a result of the reliance on procrastination and delay and lack of seriousness in responding to the legitimate demands of the legal profession.”
He called for “restructuring the Supreme Judicial Council and the Constitutional Court as a guarantee for amending the powers, rights and freedoms guaranteed by the constitution.”
Lawyers have repeatedly complained that they are unable to defend their clients in complete freedom, and have accused the authorities of not respecting legal procedures, especially with regard to the law on detention. They have said that those accused in the case of “conspiring against state security” have not been released despite 14 months of detention.
Since February 2023, the authorities have arrested political leaders on charges including “conspiring against state security,” which the opposition denies.
Tunisian lawyers had previously carried out a general strike on May 13 in protest against a security force storming the headquarters of the Bar Association to execute an arrest warrant against lawyer Sonia Dahmani.
President Kais Saied says the judiciary is independent and that he does not interfere in its work, while the opposition accuses him of using the judiciary to prosecute those who reject exceptional measures that began to be imposed on July 25, 2021.
These measures include dissolving the Judicial Council and Parliament, issuing legislation by presidential decree, approving a new constitution through a popular referendum, and holding early legislative elections.
Political forces consider these measures a “coup against the (2014) revolution’s constitution and a consecration of absolute individual rule,” while other forces supporting the president see them as a “correction of the course of the 2011 revolution” that overthrew then-president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
