{"id":6557,"date":"2026-06-20T16:15:58","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T14:15:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mezghena.org\/?p=6557"},"modified":"2026-06-20T16:15:58","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T14:15:58","slug":"tunisia-mali-drc-when-the-state-puts-law-under-surveillance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mezghena.org\/index.php\/en\/2026\/06\/20\/tunisia-mali-drc-when-the-state-puts-law-under-surveillance\/","title":{"rendered":"Tunisia, Mali, DRC: when the state puts law under surveillance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Lawyers\u2019 strike in Tunisia, financial sanctions in Mali, constitutional debate in the Democratic Republic of Congo: the same question crosses several African scenes. Does law still protect society, or is it becoming the polished language of political domination?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Justice is never only an institution. It is the last place where a society measures whether force still accepts a limit. When Tunisian lawyers stop work to denounce judicial dysfunctions, when Mali freezes the assets of opponents in exile in the name of counter-terrorism, when the DRC debates possible constitutional change in a sensitive climate, these are not isolated facts. They are the same slide: the contemporary African state speaks the language of law, but tolerates less and less that law resist it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Tunisia, the Bar Association organized a national strike on 18 June 2026 after regional mobilizations. The demands concern working conditions, judicial dysfunctions, arrests of colleagues and the need to reform the system. This is a heavy signal. Since the institutional rupture of 25 July 2021, Tunisia\u2019s balance has deteriorated. The justice system, already imperfect before, now appears to part of the profession as placed in a zone of uncertainty and pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact must be taken seriously beyond Tunisia. Lawyers are not secondary actors. They hold a sensitive function: defending, contesting, accessing files and making procedure speak against arbitrariness. When the profession says the framework is no longer sufficiently predictable, the whole society is warned. The ordinary litigant, without networks, platform or protection, is always the first to be crushed by opaque justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Mali, the decision to financially sanction twelve nationals in exile raises another alarm. The authorities accuse them in particular of supporting or promoting terrorism. The state obviously has a duty to fight armed groups. But anti-terrorism accusation is one of the most powerful instruments available to power. Poorly framed, it destroys the boundary between security and repression. It turns the opponent into an accomplice, the journalist into a threat, the exile into an enemy, political disagreement into a criminal file.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The issue is not to absolve anyone by principle. It is more demanding: what evidence, what adversarial procedure, what independent judge, what right of appeal, what proportionality? A state that accuses without showing, sanctions without debate and freezes assets without guarantees damages its own legitimacy. It believes it is strengthening security; in reality it manufactures an order of permanent suspicion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the DRC, the round table organized at the episcopal conference around constitutional change points to another dimension of the same crisis. The Constitution is not a simple technical tool. It is the minimal political pact that frames the conquest and exercise of power. As soon as a power in place touches the Constitution in an atmosphere of mistrust, society immediately asks whether the objective is to improve the state or prolong a balance of force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These African scenes also speak to Algeria. A neo-patrimonial state does not always abolish law. It reshapes it. It keeps courts, texts, commissions, formulas, hearings and deadlines. But it gradually empties the rule of its capacity to limit power. Law becomes a wrapper. The real decision circulates elsewhere: administration, security services, instructions, power relations and professional dependencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Law is alive only if it can contradict power. A justice system that cannot say no is not justice. A bar that cannot defend without fear is no longer a counter-power. A Constitution modifiable according to the convenience of the moment is no longer a pact. Counter-terrorism without guarantees becomes political policing with legal vocabulary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The region does not need weak states. It needs states limited by law. That is very different. A strong state without independent justice is only an apparatus. A strong state with free judges, protected lawyers, public procedures and respected Constitutions becomes a civil power. The whole battle lies there: tearing law away from institutional d\u00e9cor and making it a real force again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yamina Boudiaf<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sources utilis\u00e9es<\/h2>\n\n\n