The Association of Tunisian magistrates (AMT) sounded the alarm on Tuesday in a particularly severe tone press release. It accuses the Ministry of Justice of having placed the entire judiciary under its tutelage, depriving the judiciary of any institutional independence for the third consecutive year.
“Unprecedented” interference of the executive
According to the AMT, the 2025-2026 judicial year opened up in a permanent interference and disorder climate, marked by a continuous flow of ministerial service notes affecting the appointments, changes and dismissals of magistrates, including within the prosecution and instruction.
These decisions, qualified as “arbitrary”, would have transformed the functioning of justice into permanent judicial motion, breaking with the principles of stability and transparency.
The association deplores that, since the creation and then the end of the provisional Superior Council of the Magistracy, the Ministry of Justice has concentrated in its hands all the prerogatives of management of the judicial corps, exercising direct control over careers and assignments.
AMT stresses that several strategic positions – including those of first president and attorney general at the Court of Cassation, as well as that of president of the real estate court – remain vacant for more than two years, which opens the way to an administrative supervision of the executive power.
She claims to have identified more than a thousand service notes in two years, which is the source of a massive imbalance between the courts, unjustified appointments and a climate of professional insecurity.
The organization recalls that these practices violate article 121 of the 2022 Constitution, which prohibits any transfer without the agreement of the magistrate concerned. For AMT, this illegal method has established a policy of punitive mutations and disciplinary sanctions aimed at subject judges to the directives of power.
Inability to the rule of law and independent justice
In its press release, the association accuses the Minister of Justice of undermining the foundations of the rule of law, by establishing “a climate of fear and obedience” within the courts. It also denounces the political instrumentalization of certain sensitive cases, citing in particular the death sentence pronounced in Nabeul for publications on Facebook or the sanction of an inmate who refused to look at the president.
The AMT calls on the magistrates to refuse any form of submission and to challenge illegal decisions before the administrative court. It also urges civil society to mobilize to defend the independence of justice, which it deems threatened like never before.
“Tunisia is going through an unprecedented crisis today in its judicial history, marked by the total confiscation of the judiciary by the Ministry of Justice,” concludes the press release.
