The Council of the National Bar Association decided on Wednesday to wear the red armband for a week, from September 16 to 20, as a sign of protest against “the restrictions imposed on lawyers in the exercise of their functions.”
The Council will also organize, according to a press release, demonstrations in front of the Palace of Justice of Tunis and at the headquarters of the courts of first instance, on September 18, in addition to the boycott of work and judicial requisitions for a week, starting on September 16, in order to demand a reform of the judicial system and to respond to the professional demands of the profession “as soon as possible”, according to the text of the press release.
The Council stressed that it had noted “serious violations committed against lawyers in the exercise of their functions, including depriving some of them of the right to consult court files, the right to plead and the right to visit their clients, harassing them, deliberately insulting them and attempting to attack them, thus undermining their dignity and respect in the exercise of their functions within security units and prisons, and threatening them with prosecution and criminal sanctions during their pleadings in certain cases.
He held the Ministry of Justice responsible for what he described as “the deterioration of the situation of the judicial system and the legal profession and called for the installation of the High Council of Justice and the Constitutional Court as the sole guarantor of a balance between powers, and of the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.
