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Tunisian President Rejects Constitutional Court Amendments

Tunisian President Kais Saied in Tunis (AFP/Getty Images)
Tunisian President Kais Saied in Tunis (AFP/Getty Images)
    Tunis, Cairo - Mongi Saidani, Asharq al-Awsat
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Tunisian President Rejects Constitutional Court Amendments

Tunisian President Kais Saied in Tunis (AFP/Getty Images)
Tunisian President Kais Saied in Tunis (AFP/Getty Images)

Tunisian President Kais Saied refused to sign the Constitutional Court Law amendments introduced by the parliament, fearing they would be used to overthrow him.

Saied’s decision further escalates the political tensions between the presidency and parliament, in addition to the government backed by Ennahda Movement.

The president sent a letter to Speaker Rached Ghannouchi, rejecting the amendments, calling for respecting all provisions of the constitution.

Constitutional law experts voiced their concerns that the recent amendments could be used to remove Saied from office.

The parliament approved the ratified revisions of the draft bill for electing members of the Constitutional Court and reduced the number of votes from 145 to only 131.

The amendment was proposed by Ghannouchi to reduce the number of votes constitutionally necessary to pass the members of the court to 109 votes representing the absolute majority.

Observers believe Ennahda can obtain the necessary number of votes to pass certain candidates of the Constitutional Court.

Earlier, the president rejected the ministerial amendment carried out by Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and approved by the parliament.

The Constitutional Court is able to end the president of the republic's term, declaring the position of president vacant, receive the presidential oath and examine disputes related to the jurisdiction of both the president and prime minister.

It plays a pivotal role in monitoring constitutional amendments and treaties, draft laws and procedures related to the parliament's internal system.

Meanwhile, Arab League Sec-Gen Ahmed Aboul Gheit, began Sunday a visit to Tunis, following an official invitation within the framework of coordination and consultation with Tunisia as the current president of the 30th Arab summit.

An official at the League’s General Secretariat said that during the visit, Aboul Gheit is scheduled to meet with the Tunisian president to discuss various Arab issues, including the situation in Libya, the Palestinian cause, and the ongoing Arab crises.

The source stated that the talks between the summit presidency and the General Secretariat include all decisions of the 30th Arab summit. They will also evaluate measures that could be implemented, in light of the exceptional circumstances that the Arab region and the world witnessed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Secretary-General is also expected to meet the Foreign Minister Othman al-Jerandi to discuss issues of common interest between Tunisia and the General Secretariat.

Abul Gheit will meet with directors of specialized Arab organizations operating in Tunisia to discuss the role of the joint Arab action in helping member states mitigate the effects and repercussions of COVID-19.

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In Besieged Sudan’s El-Fasher, Neighbors Improvise First Aid for Wounded

FILE - A Sudanese evacuee carries her son as they leave the USNS Brunswick at Jeddah Port, Saudi Arabia, May 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)
FILE - A Sudanese evacuee carries her son as they leave the USNS Brunswick at Jeddah Port, Saudi Arabia, May 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)
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In Besieged Sudan’s El-Fasher, Neighbors Improvise First Aid for Wounded

FILE - A Sudanese evacuee carries her son as they leave the USNS Brunswick at Jeddah Port, Saudi Arabia, May 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)
FILE - A Sudanese evacuee carries her son as they leave the USNS Brunswick at Jeddah Port, Saudi Arabia, May 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)

For a week, eight-year-old Mohamed has suffered the pain of shrapnel stuck in his arm. But he is one of the lucky ones in Sudan’s western city El-Fasher, which is under paramilitary attack.
“One of our neighbors used to be a nurse. She helped us stop the bleeding,” Mohamed’s father, Issa Said, 27, told AFP via satellite connection under a total communications blackout.
Like an estimated one million more people trapped in the city under a year-long siege by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Said cannot get to a hospital for emergency care.
With only the most meagre supplies remaining in El-Fasher, his family is among those whose only medical help has come from neighbors and family members who improvise.

In its quest to seize the North Darfur state capital — the only major Darfur city it has not conquered during two years of war with Sudan’s army — the RSF has launched attack after attack, which have been repelled by army and allied forces.

Even if people were to brave the streets, the Saudi Hospital is the only partially functioning one now, according to a medical source there, and even that has come under repeated attack.
Mohamed, an aid coordinator who fled to El-Fasher after getting shot in the thigh during an RSF attack days ago on the nearby famine-hit Zamzam displacement camp, estimates hundreds of injured civilians are trapped in the city.
According to aid sources, hundreds of thousands have fled Zamzam for the city, which is already on the brink of mass starvation according to a UN-backed assessment.
Yet the people of El-Fasher have “opened their homes to the wounded,” Mohamed told AFP, requesting to be identified by his first name for safety.
“If you have the money, you send someone to buy clean gauze or painkillers if they can find any, but you have to make do with what you have,” said Mohamed, whose leg wound meant he had to be carried the 15 kilometers from Zamzam to the city, a journey that took hours.

In crowded living rooms and kitchens, civilians with barely any medical training cobble together emergency first aid, using household items and local medicinal plants to treat burns, gunshot wounds and shrapnel injuries.
Another victim, Mohamed Abakar, 29, said he was fetching water for his family when a bullet pierced his leg.
The limb immediately broke underneath him, and a neighbor dragged him into his home, fashioning him a splint out of a few pieces of wood and cloth.
“Even if it heals my broken leg, the bullet is still inside,” Abakar told AFP, also by satellite link.

By Monday, the RSF’s recent attacks on El-Fasher and surrounding displacement camps had killed more than 400 people, according to the UN.
At least 825,000 children are trapped in “hell on Earth” in the city and its environs, the UN children’s agency UNICEF has warned.
The people of El-Fasher have suffered a year of RSF siege in a city the Sudanese military has also bombed from the air.
Residents have taken to hiding from the shelling in makeshift bunkers, which are often just hastily dug holes topped with bags of sand.

But not everyone makes it in time.

On Wednesday, a shell broke through Hanaa Hamad’s home, shrapnel tearing apart her husband’s abdomen before they could scramble to safety.
“A neighbor and I treated him as best we could. We disinfected the wound with table salt and we managed to stop the bleeding,” the 34-year-old mother of four told AFP.

But by morning, he had succumbed to his injuries, too severe for his wife and neighbor to handle.