Thursday 23 January 2014 The last plenary of the Assembly began with the sad news of the death of deputy Mohamed Allouch, who died the previous night of a heart attack. Deputies’ sadness was palpable throughout the process of adoption of the final articles of the constitution. Two deputies left the Assembly as they did

Monday’s plenary began in an atmosphere of hushed anticipation as the National Constituent Assembly glimpsed the end of its discussion of the draft constitution, which has been two years in the making. The public gallery was filled to near capacity as journalists, civil society representatives and members of the public came to witness what was

The plenary commenced Chapter Seven of the draft constitution on local government. The discussion centred around the important of decentralization in making citizens aware of their role in governance and in reducing the burdens on central government. All articles of this chapter were adopted in one day, many of them unanimously. Two other chapters were

The plenary commenced at 11am on Friday 17th January with continuation of the discussions around the powers of the Constitutional Court. The remaining articles 118 to 121 on the procedures for examination of the constitutionality of laws saw few disagreements and were adopted without amendments. A new article, proposed by Faycal Jadlaoui (Ettakattol Party) was

The Assembly resumed its plenary discussions of the draft constitution after long private meetings between blocs on Wednesday – some as long as six hours – had prevented a plenary being held for the first time since the discussion and voting on the final draft had begun on 3rd January. The plenary returned to two

Tuesday’s plenary opened amid unity and division – unity recalled by the anniversary of the revolution marking three years since the departure of Ben Ali, and divisions about procedures for protecting judicial independence. The day’s proceedings began around 16.30 with a speech by Mustapha ben Jaafar, Speaker of the Assembly (Ettakattol Party) who paid homage

The National Constituent Assembly entered its eleventh day of discussion of the constitution on Monday after a long debate the previous evening over the division of executive powers. The dividing line between the powers of the President of the Republic and the powers of the Prime Minister formed the theme of debates around articles 91

Summary of Day 10, Sunday 12th January: Assembly Debates Executive Powers Following the heated exchanges that had brought an adjournment to Saturday’s session, Sunday’s session opened with an apology from Samia Abbou (CPR) for having attacked Ennahdha Party over the consensual amendment to article 73 to remove the upper age limit for Presidential candidates. The

After the heated scenes of Friday evening, the plenary started at midday on Saturday following meetings of the Consensus Committee and parliamentary blocs. The plenary began with a request to return to article 54 which had been adopted the previous day, to add a paragraph stating that “the Election Law shall establish the legal consequences

The New York Times, By CARLOTTA GALL JAN. 14, 2014 TUNIS — Tunisia’s National Constituent Assembly is close to passing a new Constitution that legislators across the political spectrum, human rights organizations and constitutional experts are hailing as a triumph of consensus politics. Two years in the making and now in its third draft, the