To demonstrate their impatience with the pace of judicial reforms, Tunisian judges are wearing red armbands.
The Tunisian Parliament is expected to finally take up the issue of judicial reform within the coming days.
Weeks of demonstrations by Tunisian judges led to Constituent Assembly Speaker Mustapha Ben Jaafar's April 27th promise that legislative debate would soon be held on the issue.
Since the January 14th revolution, there have been numerous calls for reforming the judiciary, perceived as the sole guarantor of freedom and the balance of powers. But the status of the judiciary has remained the same, apart from the dismissal of some corrupt judges.
Members of the Tunisian Association of Magistrates (AMT) even began wearing red armbands on April 18th to draw attention to slow pace of reform.
"Judges are in a state of unprecedented tension," Tunis Court Judge Fethi Kleii explained about the red armband action.
"From January 14th until now, there has been great psychological pressure on judges, so we decided to raise the red badge," he added.
The AMT is demanding that the Temporary Judiciary Oversight Commission formally replace the dissolved Supreme Judicial Council, which operated under the Ben Ali regime. The association is also calling for judges' working conditions to improve and for greater involvement of judges in the reform process.
The former regime "left a heavy legacy", Justice Minister and Ennahda member Noureddine Bhiri said at press conference on April 17th.
"Corruption pervades all levels, and the infrastructure of courts...is ancient and quasi-destructive," the minister said.
Judges, like journalists, were subject to numerous assaults and pressure after the revolution, Bhiri added.
In a statement, the magistrates' association also warned of what it called "the danger of...purging the judiciary to circumvent the requirement to establish guarantees of independence of the judiciary and judges, and to justify perpetuating the trusteeship imposed on them by the executive branch".
The AMT called on the justice minister to suspend appointments for judiciary positions until there is a serious framework for ensuring transparency.
Bhiri said, however, that his ministry had launched the first steps of reform by appointing competent officials and entrusting a financial oversight commission with monitoring the ministry accounts to determine the extent of corruption.
Saber, a judge from the Court of El-Kef in northwest Tunisia, contended that while judges were optimistic after the revolution, many were dismayed that the temporary body to oversee the sector had not yet seen the light of day.
This delay could impact the functioning of the judiciary, he said.
© Magharebia.com 2012
