Although Tunisia celebrated the anniversary of President Ben Ali’s removal from office on January 14, 2011, celebrations were marked without a new Constitution, as the nation had hoped.
Yet a milestone was nevertheless reached a week earlier on January 6, when the National Constituent Assembly approved Chapter 40 of the draft Constitution— which clearly stresses equality between women and men.
Although Tunisia celebrated the anniversary of President Ben Ali’s removal from office on January 14, 2011, celebrations were marked without a new Constitution, as the nation had hoped.
Yet a milestone was nevertheless reached a week earlier on January 6, when the National Constituent Assembly approved Chapter 40 of the draft Constitution— which clearly stresses equality between women and men.
Chapter 40 also emphasizes the need for equal sharing between men and women of elected assembly seats. This chapter replaces a draft submitted by the Islamists, which stipulated that women’s roles complement those of men, but the draft was heavily criticized by secular parties and Tunisian human rights and women’s movements.
Ziad Laadhari, the official spokesman of the Ennahda Movement stressed that women’s rights and their gains are the slogans of his party, yet the vote revealed that a significant number, which is more than half of the Ennahda bloc MPs (46) voted against the chapter on women’s rights and equal sharing of public space, although this issue was previously agreed upon.
Laadhari said that freedom of women is not an issue that has consensus within the party. He added that he does not rule out the possibility that some of the MPs would oppose it or that it may raise some tensions. In the end it was possible to control these reactions and to vote in favour of equal sharing of public space.”
The role of Sharia
The Tunisian Constituent Assembly had earlier approved chapter one of the new Constitution, which stipulates that “Tunisia is a free, independent and sovereign state. Its religion is Islam, its language is Arabic and its type of government is the Republic.” It also stipulated that this chapter would not be amended. This formulation is the same as the formulation of the 1959 Constitution (the first to be issued after the revolution). However, a slight amendment was introduced by adding the following expression: “It is not permissible to amend this chapter.” The assembly rejected proposals to add that “Islam is the main source of legislation in the country.”
Chapter two of the Constitution stipulated that “Tunisia shall be a civil state based on citizenship, the will of the people and the rule of law. This chapter shall not be modified.”
With the ratification of these chapters, Tunisia has ensured a minimum level of rights and freedoms, as well as the civil nature of its state. It has also folded forever a page on the identity of the state and the status of Sharia law in legislation.
When trouble began
Once the Constitution’s preamble was drafted in June 2012, the nation’s identity battle raged on and deputies started to exchange accusations. Some accused others of being obscurantist and fundamentalist while others accused them of being alienated modernists.
These severe conflicts were only resolved with the intensification of the political crisis in the country as a result of assassinations, which resulted from the al-Takfir thought based on accusing others of blasphemy or unbelief and the identity war, which were behind these offenses.
A consensus committee was formed in the Constituent Assembly to bring the different views closer to each other and to reach agreements between an Islamic majority and a secular opposition after the sudden issuance of the draft constitution in June 2013, which created more splits instead of creating more agreements.
Ahmad Safi, a member of the assembly’s consensus committee for the Popular Front, which is a leftist movement, told Correspondents that “the opposition stressed the issue of the civil nature of the state because of the ambiguous formulation in the original texts such as ‘based on the fundamentals of Islam.’ However, because discussion took too much time, this statement was reformulated after reaching consensus to read as follows: “In expression of our people’s adherence to the values of Islam.”
“We stressed the need to keep the first chapter of the Constitution, as it is there to stop all futile discussions because its formula is acceptable by all Tunisians, regardless of their political affiliations. We were against amending it and we were able to do so when everybody voted in favour of the phrase “it is not permissible to amend this chapter.”
Ladhaari said his party accepted to remove the phrase “based on the fundamentals of Islam,” because it wanted to reach agreements and because it wanted a Constitution, which represents all Tunisians. “The Ennahda Movement also believes in the civil nature of the state and has no reservations with this regard. The objection within the parliamentary bloc of the movement was based on interpretations not on the principle itself.”
The chapter on rights and freedoms also took lots of time and discussions by the competent rights and freedoms committee. The consensus committee tried hard to reduce points of disagreement, such as equality between men and women. It should be noted that the opposition has abandoned its demand to stipulate equality in inheritance in the Constitution. As for guarantees of individual and public rights, the opposition has also abandoned its demand for the abolishment of the death penalty and accepted restrictions on the right to life by exceptions to be regulated by the law. .On the other hand, the Islamic bloc accepted the principle of freedom of belief and freedom of conscience and the criminalization of al-Takfir (accusation of blasphemy or unbelief).
Ahmed Safi commented on the chapter on rights, saying: “We reached a compromise between the different views because of the chapter on freedom of conscience and the criminalization of al-Takfir.” This came as a result of the pressure exerted by the street after accusing MP Mongi Rahaoui of blasphemy and threats of assassinating him during the discussions.
“One cannot say that the Constitution contained all the proposals of the Popular Front and the democratic forces in the Council, but the cowman will not complain and the wolf will not be hungry,” said Rahaoui. “We still have many reservations about the wording of some of the chapters, but we have succeeded in including many rights in other chapters such as the trade union’s right, the freedom to form political parties and freedom of assembly and demonstration.”
Laadhari described the debate, which led to reaching agreements on these chapters during the plenary session through voting. He told Correspondents that the problem was that each party was trying to impose its ideological beliefs on the other MPs but the experience of the consensus committee was unique. “Such a committee is not present even in some countries which are famous for their democracy,” he said.
Ahmad Safi described the consensus reached with the Ennahda MPs: “The Ennahda Movement is known for its liberal thought but its liberalism is not so strong and this is why we were able to reach compromises with regards to rights and freedoms. On the other hand, the movement cares about the social side of the Constitution because it has supporters and it wants to please them. This has made it easy to reach consensus and eased the work of the committee.”
