XALIMANEWS-In a column, Moussa Tine, president of the Pencoo Democratic Alliance, sounds the alarm on the urgency of reforming the Senegalese Constitutional Council. According to him, it is unacceptable that this body, a pillar of the rule of law, continues to declare itself incompetent in the face of crucial issues relating to the exercise of political mandates.
“It is inconceivable that the Senegalese continue to put up with the Constitutional Council’s declarations of incompetence. Therefore, reform can no longer wait. This is a matter that requires urgent processing. Until then, all the contenders for power had decried the failures of the system and announced reforms of the body, but they ended up doing without them, not to say deliberately forgetting in order to avoid confronting the rigors of a strong constitutional judge.
Obviously, this reform was more necessary and seemed more urgent than the constitutional revision abolishing the HCCT and the CESE. In truth, only the law repealing the amnesty law can compete with the said reform.
Now, we have just gone through two conflicts relating to the exercise of the political mandate arising from universal suffrage without the wise being able to resolve them. Before the Constitutional Council, the State even raised the argument of the incompetence of the court to resolve disputes relating to the forfeiture of a deputy mandate and the allocation of the post of 8? vice-president of the National Assembly.
It is very cowardly of us, politicians, to denounce the repeated incompetent decisions of constitutional judges when it is the politician who can and who must modify the law with a view to giving broad competence to the Council. Indeed, the latter has always declared himself incompetent with regard to the legal provisions in force.
The incompetence of the Council is not only due to the lack of temerity of the judges; it is above all because the law has only given it restrictively listed powers.
All things considered, the first corrective reform that is expected will go in the direction of giving wise people general competence. It will thus suffice to put in the law the possibility for the latter to judge the constitutionality of laws and to act as regulators of the functioning of institutions and the activity of public authorities.
The second expected reform relates to its composition and the methods of appointing its members. Certainly, the President of the Republic and Parliament will have to continue to designate some of them. However, the elected members must be more numerous than the appointed members. Members from bodies such as lawyers, university professors and magistrates must all be elected by their peers.
This is an urgent reform which will guarantee institutional stability while promoting the emergence of a peaceful democracy. This progressive reform is not only not complicated, but it can be carried out as quickly as possible.
I directly appeal to the President of the Republic as well as the Prime Minister. They have the political means, especially with the strong qualified parliamentary majority they have in the hemicycle. »
Moussa Tine
President of the Pencoo Democratic Alliance
