“The Constitutional Court shall have exclusive jurisdiction to rule on
constitutional matters:
- draft laws, at the request of the President of the Republic, the
Head of Government or thirty members of the Assembly of
People’s Representatives [...];
- constitutional bills submitted to it by the President of the
Assembly of People’s Representatives in accordance with
Article 144 or to monitor compliance with constitutional
amendment procedures; [...].”
40. It emerges from this provision that, in the Respondent State’s system, the
remedy of constitutional challenge of laws or review of constitutional
amendment procedures are only open to the President of the Republic, the
Head of Government or thirty (30) members of the Assembly of People’s
Representatives.
41. The Court notes, as it did in Ibrahim Ben Mohamed Ben Ibrahim Belguith v.
the Republic of Tunisia, that despite the enactment of Organic of 3
December on the Constitutional Court, the said Court has yet to be set up.10
42. In light of the foregoing, the Court notes that the remedies before the
IPCCPL and the Constitutional Court are not available to citizens. In
addition, the Constitution adopted on 27 January 2014, that is, before the
IPCCPL was set up on 18 April 2014, cannot be challenged before the said
Court, even by those expressly empowered by law. It follows that the
Applicant had no remedy to exhaust prior to bringing the case before this
Court.
43. Consequently, the Court dismisses the objection based on non-exhaustion
of local remedies and holds that the Application meets the requirement of
Article 56(5) of the Charter.
10
Ibrahim Ben Mohamed Ben Ibrahim Belguith v. Republic of Tunisia, ACtHPR, Application No.
017/2021, Judgment of 22 September 2022, §§ 72 and 79.
12