A legal reading of President Kais Saied's decision about invoking article 80 of the Tunisian Constitution

Abstract

President Kais Saied’s invoking Article 80 of the Tunisian Constitution and the subsequent dismissal of the Prime Minister and the freezing of members of Parliament raised a wave of questions in the Tunisian street in particular and the region in general about the legitimacy of these decisions. In the first section, this paper discusses Article 80 of The Tunisian constitution and the formal and substantive conditions necessary to activate this article of the constitution. Moreover, it examines if the decisions of the Tunisian president were consistent and compatible with what was stated in article 80. Then it addresses in the second section the issue of what some considered a coup or a misinterpretation of the Tunisian constitution. Finally, the article discusses the possible scenarios after this crisis and what are the available tools to confront these decisions in the light of the absence of the Constitutional Court.