Tunisian judiciary seeks fresh start

Members of Tunisia's legal community hope a post-revolution court system will be free of any corruption or undue influence.

By Jamel Arfaoui for Magharebia in Tunis – 09/02/11

Lawyers in Tunisia are calling on Justice Minister Lazhar Karoui Chebbi to ensure the country's judiciary is free from the influence of members of former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's regime.

"There is a need to cleanse the judiciary," said Tunisian Bar Association (CNOA) chief Abderrazak Kilani Friday (February 4th), at a meeting in the group's offices in the capital.

Kilani added that lawyers made many sacrifices to maintain their independence. "There are lawyers who were deprived of their livelihoods," he noted. "There are also some others who were targeted by the tax authorities in order to punish them."

"The interior minister took the initiative and removed the symbols of corruption from the interior ministry," lawyer Mohamed al-Habib al-Redifi said.

"However, the justice minister still hesitates to go that route and didn't dare to make the necessary purge. The purges must include all sectors, such as the legal profession and media sectors," he added.

Stressing the need for a clean slate, lawyer Abdulaziz al-Almazoughi said that "now the real revolution has been launched, and we, the lawyers, are its real leaders."

Meanwhile, the Association of Tunisian Magistrates (AMT) issued a statement Friday in which they called for "adopting the general trend in the country to settle grievances in order to deal with corruption and remove the parties that are responsible for perpetuating the policy of corruption".

The statement also called for ridding the judiciary of all the current restrictions on justice "so as to give room for perpetuating the state judiciary versus the administration judiciary."

The judiciary is still controlled by institutions managed from within the justice ministry and through the High Judicial Council whose members are elected in a way lacking in transparency, AMT President Ahmed al-Rahmuni confirmed.

Members of the executive bureau of AMT met with Justice Minister Chebbi, himself a former bar association president. According to al-Rahmuni, the minister promised to solve judges' problems and that "he would work to enforce full respect for the independence of judiciary authority".

According to al-Rahmuni, the minister stressed the principle of consulting with judges, adding that "The ministry will work hard to liquidate the former system, especially the penalties that were imposed on the members of the AMT under Ben Ali's rule".

Scores of citizens have turned to the "commission to expose corruption" seeking justice for wrongs under the old regime. The committee was established after the revolution to provide for a fair settlement of grievances.

"After I brought my case to the judiciary, I came out empty-handed because of the conspiracy of a judge with the defendant," Naima Belhaj said. Belhaj said she suffered greatly after a member of the old regime usurped some of her agricultural land.

"I will present my case again through the commission to expose corruption," Belhaj said, carrying a large file in her hand.

According to Judge Kalthoum Kennou, a member of the AMT executive bureau, most of the judges are honest. "However, a few of them have tarnished the image of justice," she said.

Source: Magharebia.com.
Link: http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2011/02/09/feature-02.