Tunisia’s President Saied Kais sacks 57 judges after accusing them of corruption, complicity and protecting accused persons in terrorist cases according to official gazette.
The council had acted as the main guarantor of judicial independence since Tunisia’s 2011 revolution and the move fuelled accusations that Saied was interfering in the judicial process.
“Given opportunity after opportunity and warning after warning to the judiciary to purify itself,” President Kais Saied said in a televised address. Hours later the official gazette published a decree announcing the dismissals.
Last July, critics accused Saied of making a grab for one man-rule after he sacked the government and took hold of executive powers. He was accused of staging a coup after ditching the 2014 constitution, to rule instead of by decree.
Among those sacked was Youssef Bouzaker, the former head of the Supreme Judicial Council whose members Saied replaced this year as he moved to take control of the judiciary.
Another prominent casualty of the purge was Bachir Akremi. Some political activists say the judge is too close to the Ennahda party and accuse him of stopping cases against it. Ennahda and Akremi both deny the allegations.
Meanwhile, they country’s powerful UGTT trade union has called for a national strike on June 16 to demand an increase in wages and oppose President Kais Saied’s proposed spending cuts and privatisation as the country faces an economic crisis.
