36. The Court notes that the Respondent State merely asserts that the
Applicant seized the Court directly without first affording domestic courts the
opportunity to rule on the alleged irregularities, without indicating the
remedies that the Applicant should have exhausted before seizing this
Court. The Court notes however, that the present application seeks to have
it examine the legality of the adoption procedure in respect of the 27 January
2014 Constitution, to nullify it and to declare that the Respondent State’s
1959 Constitution remains in force.
37. The Court further notes that under Article 3 of Organic Law 2014 - 14 of 18
April 2014 establishing the Interim Bureau for the verification of
constitutionality of draft bills (Instance Provisoire de Contrôle de la
Constitutionnalité des Projets de Lois) (hereinafter “IPCCPL”),8 this body
may be seized with a constitutional challenge in respect of draft laws at the
behest of the President of the Republic, the Head of Government, or by, at
least thirty (30) parliamentarians. It also follows from the same provision
that the IPCCPL cannot examine a constitutional challenge in respect of
laws already promulgated prior to its establishment and that the courts lack
jurisdiction to review the constitutionality of laws.
38. The Court observes that the Applicant is not one of the persons entitled to
bring an action relating to the 27 January 2014 Constitution before the
IPCCPL.
39. The Court further notes that with the adoption of the Organic Law N0. 201550 of 3 December 2015 (herein after referred to as “Organic Law of 3
December 2015”,9 constitutional challenges are the preserve of a category
of persons expressly mentioned in the Article 120 of the Constitution as
follows:
8
See also Organic Law No. 2014-014 of 18 April 2014 on the Provisional Institution for the Control of
the Constitutionality of Draft Laws (IPCCPL), supra, note 2.
9Organic Law No. 2015-50 of 3 December 2015 on the Constitutional Court, Official Gazette of the
Republic of Tunisia, 8 December 2015, Article 45 and s.
11