Tunisia praised for inclusive reforms

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Tunisia, the torchbearer of the 2011 Arab Spring, praised by the African Court on Human and People’s Rights (AfCHPR) for spearheading democratization reforms in North Africa.

Arusha. Tunisia, where the Arab Spring started eight years ago, has been praised for its democratic reforms which have made it a political learning house in Africa.

“Tunisia has masterfully reenacted the proof that Africa and democratic Africa are far from being an antinomy,” Mr Sylvain Ore, the president of the African Court on Human and People’s Rights (AfCHPR) said on Monday. Opening the 5th Ordinary session of the pan African Court in Tunis, the country’s capital, Justice Ore said the constitutional reforms recently undertaken in Tunisia have won admiration across the African continent.

“Tunisia has never ceased to be the torch bearer of fundamental and imperative ideals of the open society all along its long history,” he said in a speech availed to The Citizen. Tunisia was one of the member countries of the-then Organisation of African Unity (OAU) which were signatories to the establishment of the African Court in June 1998 during the leaders’ summit in Burkina Faso.

It later ratified the protocol setting up AfCHPR, the judicial organ of the African Union and in June last year deposited the declaration that allowed its citizens and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to file cases directly at the Court.

Wayback in 2014, the Tunis authorities endorsed the nomination of its eminent lawyer Prof Raafar Ben Achour as the judge of the Arusha-based Court “thus confirming its undeniable interest in human rights justice”.