Status of civil and political rights

A1. Achievements in consolidating civil and political rights

32. Tunisia has paid great attention to the protection and promotion of civil and political rights.

To this end, it has undertaken numerous reforms to create a legal framework to safeguard and protect these rights. As part of its follow-up to recommendations made by the Human Rights Committee after its consideration of Tunisia’s fourth periodic report (CCPR/C/79/Add.43), in addition to constitutional and legislative reforms to promote human rights and strengthen judicial guarantees and the judicial system (summarized above, paras. 13, 14 and 16), other constitutional and legislative amendments were made in order to further promote civil and political rights and fundamental freedoms.

33. These reforms included the Constitutional Act of 27 October 1997, which strengthens political parties’ role in public life and broadens the scope for use of the referendum over issues of decisive importance for Tunisia’s future. The amendments to article 40 of the Constitution, for example, established the principle that there could be more than one candidate in presidential elections. The amendments to the Electoral Code introduced under Act No. 2003-58 of 4 August 2003 instituted additional legal guarantees for voters and established the system of continuous review of electoral rolls, as well as ensuring the transparency of the electoral process at every stage.

34. Democratic pluralism is confirmed by the presence of six political parties in the Chamber of Deputies. Tunisia also has nine political parties in all, which have the right to organize activities and meetings, express their opinions and publish their own newspapers. The political parties represented in the Chamber of Deputies are also represented in local, regional and national bodies, and are entitled to State grants to fund their activities and the publication of the newspapers.

35. As part of its follow-up to recommendations made by the Human Rights Committee

(CCPR/C/79/Add.43, paras. 18-20), Tunisia has taken steps to strengthen freedom of opinion and expression by introducing various procedures and measures, including amendments to the Press Code aimed at consolidating public freedoms. In this respect, under Act No. 2006-1 of

9 January 2006 amending the Press Code (art. 3, final para.), “Daily newspapers, periodicals and magazines shall no longer be subject to any statutory deposit”.

36. With regard to judicial safeguards and the independence of the judiciary, this report refers only to the adoption of the following legislation:

• Act No. 1999-90 of 2 August 1999 amending and supplementing certain provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure and introducing additional guarantees for persons temporarily deprived of their liberty, for example by reducing the duration of police custody, providing information to the families of arrested persons, explaining the reasons and legal grounds for the arrest, ensuring the right to a medical examination, and maintaining arrest registers under the oversight of the State prosecutor.

• Act No. 2000-43 of 17 April 2000 amending and supplementing the Code of Criminal Procedure and instituting the right of appeal in criminal cases.

• Act No. 2000-77 of 31 July 2000 amending and supplementing the Code of Criminal Procedure, establishing the post of sentence enforcement judge.

• Act No. 2001-51 of 3 May 2001 concerning the transfer of the Prisons Department to the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights.

• Act No. 2001-52 of 14 May 2001 on the organization of prisons. This is the first law of its kind in the history of the prison system to govern the respective rights and duties of prisoners and the prison administration. It grants exclusive authority to the Disciplinary Council, which includes representatives of prisoners, to apply disciplinary penalties against an offending party.

• Act No. 2002-92 of 29 October 2002 amending and supplementing the Code of Criminal procedure so as to strengthen the powers of sentence enforcement judges by allowing them, for instance, to grant parole to a convicted person whose sentence does not exceed eight months.

• Act No. 2002-93 of 29 October 2002 amending and supplementing the Code of Criminal Procedure and establishing a mediation procedure in criminal cases through the

introduction of alternatives to criminal legal proceedings in order to strengthen the spirit of cooperation among citizens and facilitate the amicable settlement of disputes.

• Act No. 2002-94 of 29 October 2002 amending and supplementing the Code of Criminal Procedure and providing that all persons who have been held in pretrial detention or who have served a sentence and whose innocence has subsequently been proven may demand material and moral compensation from the State for this detention.

• Organization Act No. 2005-81 of 4 August 2005, amending and supplementing the Act of 14 July 1967 on the organization of the judiciary, the High Council of the Judiciary and the special status of the judiciary.

• Act No. 2007-32 of 22 March 2007 supplementing certain provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which obliges judicial police officers, at hearings pursuant to letters rogatory, to inform suspects “of their right to be assisted by counsel of their choice, and to note this in the police report”, and establishing the right to prior transmission to the lawyer of the record of proceedings.

37. In this regard, it should be recalled that the independence of the judiciary is guaranteed by article 65 of the Constitution which explicitly states that “the judicial authority is independent. In exercising their functions, judges are subject only to the authority of the law”. The independence of the judiciary is further guaranteed under the Act governing the membership of the High Council of the Judiciary. It is likewise safeguarded by the Council’s power not merely to give opinions but to take enforceable decisions concerning appointment, promotion, transfer and discipline.

38. It should be recalled, moreover, that in order to strengthen the independence of the judiciary, the above-mentioned Organization Act of 4 August 2005 modified the composition of the

High Council of the Judiciary, increasing the number of members elected by the various levels of judges. The Act, in its (new) article 60, also strengthened disciplinary guarantees by providing for appeals against disciplinary decisions.

39. With regard to the implementation of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, ratified without reservations by Tunisia, which further made the declarations under articles 21 and 22 on the competence of the Committee against Torture to consider communications, the Tunisian Government consistently endeavours to put into practice all the mechanisms required to address violations:

• In the context of the follow-up to the conclusions and recommendations of the Committee against Torture following its consideration of the second periodic report of Tunisia

(see A/54/44, paras. 88-105), in which the Committee recommends the State party in particular “to bring the relevant articles of the Criminal Code into line with the definition of torture as contained in article 1 of the Convention”, Act No. 1999-89 of 2 August 1999 amended article 101 of the Criminal Code by reproducing verbatim the definition of torture contained in article 1 of the Convention.

• The Government also endeavours to develop supervision and inspection mechanisms and to facilitate victims’ access to the justice system, so as to make it possible to record all forms of abuse of authority, gather evidence and bring the perpetrators before the competent judicial authorities. Domestic proceedings against law-enforcement officers who are guilty of such offences are speedy and effective.

40. This report presents, by way of illustration, sentences handed down which show that the Tunisian authorities do not hesitate to prosecute abuse of authority by law enforcement officials, in particular acts of violence and ill-treatment of which they are guilty, and to impose severe penalties where guilt is established:

• By decision No. 1,120 of 25 January 2002, the Tunis Court of Appeal sentenced three prison officers to four years’ imprisonment for acts of violence against a prisoner, causing permanent disability of more than 20 per cent, under articles 218 and 219 of the

Criminal Code; the State was ordered to pay the victim 307,000 Tunisian dinars in compensation.

• By decision No. 788 of 2 April 2002, the Tunis Court of Appeal sentenced a police officer to 15 years in prison for deliberate assault and involuntary homicide under article 208 of the Criminal Code.

• By decision No. 1,546 of 3 April 2002, the Tunis Court of Appeal sentenced a

National Guard officer to 16 months in prison for acts of violence resulting in permanent disability of more than 20 per cent, under articles 218 and 219 of the Criminal Code; the State was ordered to pay the victim 18,000 dinars in compensation.

• By decision No. 2,645 of 12 March 2005, the Tunis Court of Appeal sentenced three police officers to prison terms ranging from 12 to 18 months for acts of violence by public

officials in the performance of their duties, under article 101 of the Criminal Code.

• By decision No. 10,372 of 2 February 2007, the Tunis Court of Appeal sentenced a police station chief to a fine of 500 dinars for acts of violence by a public official in the

performance of his duties under article 101 of the Criminal Code.

41. Criminal prosecution, moreover, does not affect the administration’s right to take disciplinary action against its officials in accordance with the principle of the duality of criminal and

disciplinary offences. In this respect, the perpetrators of such offences are generally liable to disciplinary proceedings for dismissal. The following table shows the number of prosecutions against law enforcement officials and prison officials in the Tunisian courts between 2000 and 2007.

Offence Cases 1. Abuse of authority and abuse of power with violence 80

2. Use of physical or verbal violence by State officials in the performance of their duties

107 3. Use of violence against an accused person to obtain a confession 8

4. Arbitrary detention and abduction 2

5. Miscellaneous misconduct 8

Total 205

42. In addition, among the latest initiatives taken by the State in the field of cooperation with international organizations active in the field of human rights, mention is made in particular of the agreement concluded in April 2005 between the Tunisian authorities and the International

Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) authorizing ICRC to inspect all prisons and places of custody and note conditions of detention, interview the prisoners of its choosing in the absence of a

representative of the prison authorities and submit its observations and suggestions to the competent authorities. Between June 2005 and 31 December 2006, ICRC made 61 visits to 18 police stations, 9 National Guard stations and Tunisia’s 28 prisons. In the course of these visits, the ICRC

representatives conducted thousands of interviews without witnesses. Between January 2006 and May 2007, it made 32 prison visits. This cooperation with ICRC also takes the form of training programmes for judges, prosecutors and prison officials.

A2. Progress in spreading a culture of human rights

43. In accordance with the objectives laid down in international human rights instruments, human rights education has been introduced as widely as possible while appropriate programmes for the revision of all school curricula, including all textbooks without exception, have been implemented

at the various levels of primary and secondary education. Human rights education has also been extended to all higher education bachelor’s or master’s degrees, in the form of compulsory cross-cutting modules.

44. Efforts in this regard have been aimed, in particular, at rooting out all forms of indoctrination from curricula and restoring the core mission of schools and the various educational institutions in accordance with the 1991 Act on the education system, namely:

• “To prepare young people for a life that leaves no room for any form of discrimination or segregation based on sex, social origin, race or religion”

• “To offer pupils the right to develop their personality and help them to achieve their own maturity in such a way that they become educated in the values of tolerance and

moderation”.

These strategic guidelines were reaffirmed and strengthened in 2002 in the context of the education system reform aimed at enabling schools to provide education based on the promotion of human rights, the rejection of discrimination, extremism and all forms of fanaticism.

45. By way of illustration, Tunisian religious instruction manuals, in particular those intended for upper secondary school pupils, place emphasis, inter alia, on the following themes: “the need to avoid religious conflict”, “knowledge as a bulwark against fanaticism”, “education as a factor of freedom and harmonization of religion and modernity”, “education as the enemy of dictatorship”,

“the Age of Enlightenment in Europe”, “the importance of consultation, tolerance and dialogue”.

46. These same guidelines are applied in higher education where human rights education, in accordance with Tunisian legislation and international instruments, and in the context of the implementation of the new Bachelor’s/Master’s/Doctorate reform, is a compulsory cross-cutting module in all bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

47. A culture of human rights is also spread through the training and retraining programmes of a number of occupational groups, notably judges, lawyers, law-enforcement officials, prison

personnel, health workers including psychologists, and social workers. Thus, two decisions of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights dated 26 June 1993 introduced this subject into the training programmes implemented by the Higher Institute of the Judiciary for serving judges, junior magistrates and judicial officials acting as a public officer. Other institutions are participating in these programmes, such as the Centre for Legal and Judicial Studies (established in 1992) and the Prisons and Rehabilitation Training School (established in 1996).

48. In the context of its commitment to the United Nations Decade for Human Rights Education (1995-2004) and of the implementation of the first phase of its new programme (2005-2007), the Government supported organizations and associations in such activities as studies, training courses, seminars and other events for awareness-raising, teaching and dissemination of human rights values and rules.

A3. Action by Tunisia in combating incitement to racial and religious hatred and promoting tolerance

49. Tunisia’s contribution to the report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the implementation of the Human Rights Council resolution on “Incitement to racial and religious hatred and the promotion of tolerance” illustrates the measures and mechanisms

introduced to strengthen its function as a land of encounters, dialogue, moderation and tolerance,

and as a forum for freedom and peaceful coexistence between religions. In addition to the judicial principles and safeguards provided for in the Constitution and the law (in particular the Criminal Code, the Press Code and the laws governing the practice of religious beliefs), several mechanisms and initiatives have been implemented, including: the Carthage Charter on Tolerance in the

Mediterranean (1995), the Tunis Call for Dialogue among Cultures and Civilizations (2001), the Ben Ali Chair for Dialogue among Civilizations and Religions (2001), the international prize of the President of the Republic for Islamic studies (2002), the Tunis Forum for Peace (2003), the Centre for research and studies on the dialogue among civilizations and compared religions, and the Tunis Declaration on the Alliance of Civilizations.