The group of boys, consisting of boys aged 12-16 stared at the school walls blankly for years. Wondering why it was never renovated. Why it looked the same as it did more than 40 years ago. Did they not have the right to redecorate their school? They decided it was time to change the way the wall looked. With their graffiti and markers they wrote slogans they had learnt from children in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. They demanded change.

With that they all laughed nervously at their bravery and returned home feeling somehow liberated; a feeling children only dreamed they had in Syria. Little did they know they had to pay for that sensation. When the sun went down and sleep paralyzed all sensations, heavy footsteps were heard near the old school walls. Every single boy who saw, drew or even supported the slogans on the wall was awoken violently that night. The boys were dragged out of their homes by large armed men wearing uniforms. Their parents screamed and shoved the armed men helplessly. They were paying the price for years of silence.

Unable to understand their crime the boys cried as they were put together in small pickups and jeeps. They were dragged to small humid cells and beaten by large men. A kick in the rib for contemplating change; a blow in the face for asking for change; and a crack in the spine for feeling liberated. They sat in their cells for weeks, beaten and humiliated on a daily basis. As a final warning, their nails were yanked out of their fingers to teach them to never draw on the old wall.

Whoever survived the torture was later returned home, swollen and crushed. The dead were lucky to have never lived life to see the fate of the Syrian children in the future.

Family members and friends of the young boys swarmed the streets of the town of Daraa demanding justice be brought to those who tortured and killed their children. No one listened to them. Friends of friends and passerby’s later joined the angry group, forming a small demonstration. No one listened to their demands. The demonstration grew as more people were familiar with the recent events. There was finally a response. Live bullets and tear gas forced the crowds to split up the demonstrations temporarily. The demonstrations grew larger as angry crowds demanded for nothing but change and were not receiving it. The response was once again bullets and tear gas, however this time the bullets hit flesh. As more blood was spilt, the crowds grew more furious and larger.

The word about the demonstrations reached other provinces like Homs, Douma, Idlib and Damascus suburbs. Touched by the bravery of the little boys in Daraa, more little boys followed their example and drew on old walls. Demonstrations grew larger, demands progressed. People no longer wanted change and reformations; they wanted the complete removal of the old. They wanted Bashar Al Assad and his government to resign. While his grip tightened on his throne, more blood was spilt in demonstrations and more people grew aware of the situation.

The question is, what happened to the children? Did the government learn from their mistakes? Did they stop child torture and imprisonment? On the contrary, after the boys in Daraa, Hamza alkhateeb fell victim to their torture. His genitals mutilated, his body bruised from blows, arms dented with bullet holes and burns from cigarettes, and bones crushed. Him and thousands of children in Syria are paying the price for desiring what the boys in Daraa desired.

This revolution was ignited by the children, carried out by the children, and will be extinguished by the children.

Brahmi was the second opposition leader to be assassinated since the ouster of president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011.

The first was Chokri Belaid, who belonged to the same far-left Popular Front coalition as Brahmi, and who was gunned down in a similar fashion on February 6. Authorities say they have arrested suspected accomplices but not the actual killers, and have brought no one to trial.

“Mohamed Brahmi is the second opposition political figure in six months gunned down in the streets,” said Eric Goldstein, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities need to actively pursue the killers and make clear that political assassination will not be a part of Tunisia’s democratic transition.”

Brahmi was an outspoken critic of the government, in which the Islamist Ennahdha is the leading party in a coalition with two other parties, Ettakatol and the Congress for the Republic. No one has claimed responsibility for the killing.

Brahmi was a member of the National Constituent Assembly representing the electoral district of Sidi Bouzid, the birthplace of the Tunisian uprising. He was secretary general of the leftist nationalist party The Popular Current until July 7, when he left the party and announced plans to form a new party.

Preliminary information gathered by Human Rights Watch researchers indicates that the assailants shot Brahmi at point-blank range several times at around noon as he was getting into his car in front of his home in the El Ghazala neighborhood of Tunis.

A neighbor, whose house faces Brahmi’s, told Human Rights Watch that she heard a first shot, then several successive shots as if from an automatic gun. She ran out of her house with her husband and son and saw Brahmi sprawled across the car seat, his daughter holding his hand. The neighbor said that another neighbor transported Brahmi to the Mohamed Materi hospital in Ariana, where doctors declared him dead.

Brahmi’s son, Adnen, told Human Rights Watch researchers that he heard a first and a second gunshot, and then several other shots as if from a machine gun. He and his sister ran out of the family’s house and when he arrived at the car, he said, he saw two men riding away on a motorcycle at the very end of the street.

July 25 is Republic Day in Tunisia, a national holiday commemorating the proclamation of an independent republic in 1956.

The killers of Belaid, who led the leftist Democratic Patriotic Party, also shot him at close range several times as he was getting into his car on the morning of February 6 near his home in the Menzah 6 neighborhood of Tunis.

At that time, the Interior Ministry said that the two people who carried out the killing had fled on a motorcycle. The investigations into this assassination have led to the arrest of four people suspected of complicity in the killing, the ministry has said. It said that eight others, including the actual assassins, remain at large.

Tunisia has had repeated incidents of political violence and assaults by people who appear to be motivated by an extremist Islamist agenda, apparently because of the victims’ political or cultural views.

In numerous cases, the authorities appear to have taken insufficient action to investigate and prosecute those responsible, and to prevent further threats to the victims’ lives and security. Human Rights Watch documented several cases in which victims had filed complaints at local police stations or before judges, but never received any indication of follow-up to their cases.

“Tunisia’s pluralistic politics has been an asset to its democratic transition thus far,” Goldstein said. “That transition will go off the rails if assassins can liquidate politicians with impunity.”

A ground-breaking initiative of ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller, the leading public relations consultancy in MENA, the Arab Youth Survey is aimed at providing reliable data and insights into the attitudes and aspirations of the region’s 200 million-strong youth population, informing policy- and decision-making of both government and the private sector.

ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller selected international polling firm Penn Schoen Berland (PSB) to complete 3,000 face-to-face interviews with exclusively Arab national men and women aged 18-24 in the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries (UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain), Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Tunisia, and in three new countries added this year: Morocco, Algeria and Yemen. The survey was conducted between December 2012 and January 2013.

The survey finds that in the wake of the Arab Spring, regional youth are prouder than ever of their national identity – and they increasingly embrace modern values and beliefs. Nearly nine out of 10 young Arabs (87%) feel “more proud to be an Arab” following the uprisings, and 59% believe recent changes in their country will have a positive impact on them and their family. Two-thirds (67%) feel “better off” following the events of the Arab Spring and 45% believe their national government has become more transparent.

Also, in each of the 15 countries surveyed, a clear majority are optimistic about the future, with a nearly equal percentage of youth in the Gulf and non-Gulf states (76% and 72%, respectively) saying “our best days are ahead of us”. Likewise, more than half (58%) believe their country is “heading in the right direction” considering the last 12 months, while 55% say their national economy is also heading in the right direction.

For the second consecutive year, “being paid a fair wage” is the highest priority of Middle East youth, cited by 82% of all those surveyed. The importance of fair pay is followed by home ownership, with 66% of Arab youth describing “owning their own home” as “very important”. Tellingly, nearly a fifth (15%) of young Arabs believe they will never be able to afford their own home.

Rising living costs remain the number one concern of Arab youth, also for the second straight year in the annual study, with 62% saying they are “very concerned” about the issue. According to the latest findings, the rising cost of living is a bigger worry than “the economy”, “the threat of terrorism”, “events of the Arab Spring” and “unemployment”.

“Civil unrest” and “lack of democracy” are identified as the main obstacles in the way of the MENA region’s development, while “lack of Arab unity”, the “Palestinian-Israeli conflict” and “lack of political direction” are other barriers. GCC and non-GCC youth are equally concerned about civil unrest, with 44% in both sets of countries highlighting the issue as the Arab World’s biggest obstacle.

Meanwhile, the UAE continues to be regarded as a model nation. Asked to name the country, anywhere in the world, where they would most like to live, Arab youth, as they did in 2012, cite the UAE as their preference. The UAE is the top choice of 31% of Arab youth across the 15 countries surveyed, followed by France (18%), the United States and Turkey (16%).

Sunil John, Chief Executive Officer of ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller, said: “Every year ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller conducts the Arab Youth Survey because we understand the importance of providing reliable data here in the Middle East, where research into public opinion is often limited. This substantial investment in thought leadership demonstrates our firm belief in the principle of evidence-based communications.

“We are concerned at the persistence of loopholes and ambiguities in the current draft of the constitution which, if not removed, might undermine the protection of women’s rights and the principle of gender equality,” said the head of the UN Working Group on discrimination against women in law and in practice, Kamala Chandrakirana.

Tunisia’s new constitution is seen as a vehicle to further advance justice, democracy and human rights, including the rights of women. However, the Working Group warned that the current draft fails to refer to the international human rights obligations to which Tunisia is bound.

“While equality between men and women is recognized, the prohibition of discrimination, including on the ground of sex, is not articulated in the second draft constitution, and there is a lack of provision on the right to remedy,” Ms. Chandrakirana said.

The Working Group, which just finished a five-day visit to the country, said it was also concerned that the draft does not specify the spheres of life – public and private – in which the right to equality is guaranteed. It also fails to specify women’s civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.

They called for the constitution to provide temporary special measures to accelerate women’s participation in all aspects of society and to create a mechanism to monitor compliance with women’s equality and non-discrimination.

In that regard, it recommended the adoption of explicit requirements of gender balance and gender responsiveness in every constitutional authority, as well as establishing a specialized constitutional authority on gender equality.

In particular, the Working Group urged Tunisian authorities as well as civil society organizations to reach out to rural women to improve their capacities as equal citizens entitled to fully participate in the public and political life of their country. “Rural women need to be an integral part of the historic reforms the country is undergoing,” the Group said.

During their visit to the country, Ms. Chandrakirana and Eleonora Zielinska, who represented the Working Group, met in Tunis and Jendouba with Government officials and local authorities, the national human rights institution, civil society organizations, religious institutions, academics and representatives of UN agencies.

The Working Group is scheduled to present its final conclusions and recommendations to the UN Human Rights Council in June.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Truth, Justice, Reparations and Guarantees of Non-Recurrence, Pablo de Greiff, welcomed the Government’s efforts to implement transitional justice measures over the last two years, especially in the areas of truth and reparations.

“I commend the Tunisian Government for the efforts to create a legal framework that refers to the four elements of transitional justice, namely, truth, justice, reparations, and guarantees of non-recurrence,” he said in a news release issued at the end of his first official mission to the country.

“However, the transitional justice process in Tunisia continues to face some serious challenges,” added de Greiff, a human rights expert from Colombia who has worked with different transitional justice bodies around the world.

The Special Rapporteur’s visit took place amid the country’s constitutional drafting process and the work towards the adoption of a law on transitional justice.

Tunisia has been moving towards becoming a society based on the rule of law in the wake of an uprising by its people, in 2010-2011, in which they demanded democracy and freedom, leading to the removal of the long-standing regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Their actions sparked a wave of popular uprisings, known as the Arab Spring, that brought down regimes in Egypt, Libya and Yemen.

de Greiff urged the North African country’s authorities to further their efforts on prosecutions, in the areas of institutional reform of the judiciary and the security sector, including vetting, which are essential to guarantee the non-recurrence of violations.

The Government must put the concept of human rights unambiguously at the centre of all transitional justice efforts, he stated, adding that a gender sensitive approach is also needed.

“Establishing effective measures dealing with past abuses requires deliberately designed mechanisms of institutional coordination,” he emphasized. “I therefore propose that an inter-ministerial coordination body be established to face the important challenges that lie ahead, and that guarantee adequate service delivery to victims.”

Independent experts, or special rapporteurs, are appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back, in an unpaid capacity, on specific human rights themes. Mr. de Greiff will report on his mission to Tunisia at a session of the Council in 2013.

75 judges have been dismissed in Tunisia during the last days. The firings, preceded by several others, determine an increase in the subordination of the judiciary to the executive branch, and hinder its freedom systematically.

On May 28, 2012, Justice Minister Noureddine Bhiri dismissed 82 judges, citing the need to curb pervasive corruption, but he later reinstated nine of them.

The justice minister acted in the absence of the High Judicial Council, which was suspended after elections to the NCA. The delay in setting up a new institution to supervise the judiciary has created an institutional vacuum that invites abuse.

In August 2012, Bhir, decided to revive the High Judicial Council, with the same members appointed under the Ben Ali government, citing a need to proceed with new appointments and to revise judicial assignments.

The assembly began to examine the draft of the Temporary Judicial Council law on July 27, 2012. Discussions stalled after Ennahdha, the dominant party in the assembly, opposed granting the new body financial and administrative independence.

Under article 52 of Law 67-29, the Discipline Committee of the High Judicial Council could discipline judges in any of the following ways: a reprimand recorded in the judge’s file; transfer of office; disbarment; delay in career advancement; suspension from office; and dismissal with or without deprivation of pension rights. Judges could be brought before the Discipline Council for any dereliction of a magistrate of the duties of his office, of honor or of dignity. While Law 67-29 lacked procedural guarantees, it did set minimum requirements for granting judges access to case files and the opportunity to prepare a defense.

In the absence of the High Judicial Council, the justice minister used article 44 of the law, relating to the “termination of service,” which he claims allows him to dismiss judges. A judge may appeal the minister’s decision to the Administrative Tribunal, but that body can take years to issue a decision.

“Judges should face dismissal only for serious misconduct or incompetence, and following a fair and impartial procedure,” said Eric Goldstein, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “These dismissals set a worrying and intimidating precedent for Tunisia’s justice system.”

Of the 10 dismissed judges on May 28 2012, who were interviewed by Human Rights Watch, all stated that their superiors telephoned to inform them about their names being on a list of dismissed judges. They had not previously been contacted by the justice ministry, and did not know the grounds for their dismissal.

Following a general strike of judges on May 29, Justice Minister Noureddine Bhiri announced that he would create an independent commission to review his decisions, and hear complaints from the dismissed judges. All the judges interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that the commission consisted of five ministry inspectors, and characterized the review process as summary. They said they had no access to their files, nor were they given an adequate hearing.

Some examples clarify the atmosphere that reigns in the country.

Khalfallah Al-Riahi, who had been deputy president in the first instance court of Zaghouane, told Human Rights Watch that the inspectors based his dismissal on an incident occured in 1999, when he was a judge in Ain Drahem. A colleague who took Al-Riahi’s place in a 1999 trial when he went on vacation was negligent with some files, he said.

Nizar Ghozlani, who served as a district judge in Jendouba, told Human Rights Watch that the review commission told him he was being dismissed because of his debts. On April 26, 2012, the justice ministry sent him a warning, saying he should pay the debts. “I collected the money from my parents, neighbors and friends and paid all my debts, and the company dropped the complaints,” he said. “This is the only reason they gave me for my dismissal.”

According to the Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Fair trial and Legal Assistance in Africa, adopted by The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in 2005, “judicial officials facing disciplinary, suspension or removal proceedings shall be entitled to guarantees of a fair hearing including the right to be represented by a legal representative of their choice and to an independent review of decisions of disciplinary, suspension or removal proceedings.”

The UN Basic Principles on the Independence of the Judiciary adopted by General Assembly resolutions 40/32 of November 29, 1985, also states: “A charge or complaint made against a judge in his/her judicial and professional capacity shall be processed expeditiously and fairly under an appropriate procedure. The judge shall have the right to a fair hearing.”

Khaled Boujemaa, a human rights activist and an organizer of the festival, told Human Rights Watch that he called the chief of police several times to inform him about threats from people he identified from their beards and clothing as salafists. The officer ordered the organizers to cancel the festival, and accused them of being Shi’a, Muslims who are in the minority in Tunisia. When a large group of bearded men started tearing down the photos and the flags posted for the event, Boujemaa made another call to the police, but the police did not intervene to protect him, or the participants, and they were severely beaten. The police visited the victims in the hospital, and an attempt to identify the assailants was made, but nothing was heard since and nobody knows if a trial will take place or when.

As Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, states: “The failure of Tunisian authorities to investigate these attacks entrenches the religious extremists’ impunity and may embolden them to commit more violence.”

It is clear that the extremis tend to target artists, intellectuals, and political activists. Some of the victims are drama teachers and civil society activists, assaulted on October 14, 2011, and again on May 25, 2012, in Le Kef; organizers for Doustourna, a social network, attacked on April 21, 2012, in Souk Al Ahad; journalists, documentary filmmakers and philosophy professors, intimidated on May 25, 2012, in Bizerte and May 30, 2012, in Tunis.

Based on the victims accounts, these attacks have taken place in the past 10 months in various parts of the country by people having similar clothing and appearance. The attackers used weapons such as swords, clubs, and knives to prevent festivals, gatherings or celebrations, and have beaten people, apparently for their ideas, dress, or activity.

In all cases the victims filed complaints at the police stations immediately after the assault, in most cases identifying the attackers. As far as Human Rights Watch has been able to determine, police have not arrested any of the alleged attackers, or initiated formal investigations or prosecutions against them.

Nadia Jelassi and Mohamed Ben Salem, whose works were exhibited in a show in La Marsa in June 2012, could be sentenced to up to five years in prison if convicted. Their mixed-media work provoked protests during the exhibit.

“Time and again, prosecutors are using criminal legislation to stifle critical or artistic expression,” said Eric Goldstein, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Bloggers, journalists and now artists are being prosecuted for exercising their right to free speech.”

Jelassi’s contribution to the “Printemps des arts” exhibit was a work entitled “Celui qui n’a pas…” (“He who hasn’t…”), which includes sculptures of veiled women in the midst of a pile of stones. Ben Salem’s contribution depicted a line of ants streaming out of a child’s schoolbag to spell “Allah.”

The investigative judge of the First Degree Court of Tunis informed the two artists in August that they faced charges under article 121.3 of the penal code.

The exhibition was in a state-owned hall in La Marsa known as al-Abdelliya, in the northern suburbs of Tunis, from June 1 to 10. On June 10, three people, including a court official, asked one of the gallery directors to remove two paintings they judged offensive by 6 p.m. Meanwhile, a campaign gathered steam on Facebook condemning the exhibit as anti-Islamic.

That night, dozens of people broke into the palace and vandalized some of the artworks before the police dispersed them. On June 11, riots erupted in several locations across the country, with protesters setting fire to courts, police stations, and other state institutions. One civilian died in the violence and dozens were wounded. Several preachers in mosques across the country condemned the art show, some openly calling on their followers to put the artists to death as apostates.

Jelassi told Human Rights Watch that she received a phone call from the judicial police some days after the incidents informing her that they had opened an inquiry into the events of “al-Abdelliya.” On August 17, she went to the First Degree Court of Tunis, at their request, where the investigative judge of the second bureau informed her that she faced charges of “harming public order and public morals,” under penal code article 121.3. On August 28, the investigative judge questioned her.

“I felt like I was in the times of the Inquisition,” she told Human Rights Watch. “The investigative judge asked me about my intentions behind my works that were on exhibit at the show, and whether I had intended to provoke with this work.”

The United Nations Human Rights Committee has said that laws prohibiting expression deemed to show a lack of respect for a religion or other belief system are incompatible with international law, apart from the very limited circumstances in which religious hatred amounts to incitement to violence or discrimination.

The case is at least the fourth in which prosecutors have used article 121.3 of the penal code to bring charges for speech deemed offensive to public morality and public order since the country’s new National Constituent Assembly convened in November 2011. On March 28, the first instance tribunal of Mahdia sentenced two bloggers to prison terms of seven and a half years for publishing writings perceived as offensive to Islam.

On May 3, Nabil Karoui, the owner of the television station Nessma TV, was fined 23,000 dinars (US$1,490) for broadcasting the animated film Persepolis, denounced as blasphemous by some Islamists. On March 8, Nasreddine Ben Saida, publisher of the newspaper Attounssia, was fined 1,000 dinars (US$623) for publishing a photo of a football star embracing his naked girlfriend.

The penal code’s article 121.3 makes it an offense to “distribute, offer for sale, publicly display, or possess, with the intent to distribute, sell, display for the purpose of propaganda, tracts, bulletins, and fliers, whether of foreign origin or not, that are liable to cause harm to the public order or public morals.”

“Many Tunisians expected that repressive laws like article 121.3 would not long outlast the dictator who adopted it,” Goldstein said. “We now see that as long as the transitional government does not make it a priority to get rid of these laws, the temptation to use them to silence those who dissent or think differently is irresistible.”

“The Working Group is concerned that in the drafting of a new constitution, in particular, its article 28, gains on equality and women’s human rights and women’s status in society achieved in the last five decades risk being rolled back,” said Kamala Chandrakirana, who currently heads the UN expert panel.

Made up of five independent experts, the Working Group’s focus is to identify, promote and exchange views, in consultation with States and other actors, on good practices related to the elimination of laws that discriminate against women. At the time of its establishment by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, in September 2010, it was hailed as a milestone on the road towards women’s equality with men.

Demanding democracy and freedom, the people of Tunisia were at the vanguard last year of a wave of popular uprisings across North Africa and the Middle East, which became known collectively as the Arab Spring. These movements have led to changes in government in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, and to uprisings elsewhere. Tunisia’s political transition started in January last year, and in December, an interim Government was appointed.

According to a news release from the Office for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Tunisia’s new draft constitution places women on unequal footing with men and does not consider them as independent, full individuals. It also delineates their role as ‘complementary to the one of the men in the family’ and fails to ensure that this provision is reciprocal.

“Rights are guaranteed to women not on the basis of them being entitled to human rights by virtue of the fact that they are human, but rather, them being complementary to men,” Chandrakirana said.

“Although the text refers to women’s role in nation-building, it conditions this on women being ‘complementary to men,’ thereby failing to establish the basis for full independence and empowerment of women, and their participation as active citizens for change,” she added.

According to the Working Group, women in Tunisia have long enjoyed an admired position in a region where much remains to be done to protect and promote women’s human rights, thanks in part to previous efforts by the women’s movement and the Government’s adoption in 1956 of the Code of Personal Status, which contained progressive laws on equality between men and women.

“The current Government has an obligation and responsibility to build on these achievements,” Ms. Chandrakirana said. “While Governments change, international human rights obligations remain binding.”

The Government of Tunisia has accepted a visit of the Working Group in November.

The bill would set up a Temporary Judicial Council to supervise the appointment, promotion, and dismissal of judges. The draft law gives the executive a lesser but still significant role in the composition of the council and fails to provide specific guidelines for the drastic step of removing a judge. As it stands, the measure would leave open the possibility of arbitrary dismissal or transfer, HRW argued.

“The draft law for a Temporary Judicial Council lacks protection against the arbitrary removal or transfer of judges,” said Eric Goldstein, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The National Constituent Assembly should address this shortcoming before passing a law that it defines as temporary but could have lasting impact.”

The assembly’s commission on general legislation started examining draft laws to set up the Temporary Judicial Council in February 2012. On July 27, the assembly’s plenary session began reviewing of the unified draft law submitted by the commission. The rules of procedure require the general assembly to hold a plenary discussion and then vote on the bill article by article.

Under the government of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who was ousted in January 2011, a body called the High Judicial Council served as a vehicle for executive branch to curb judicial independence. The president directly or indirectly appointed 13 of its 19 members. The assembly suspended the High Judicial Council in December.

Under the draft the new council would consist of six members elected directly by judges and five ex-officio members – the president and prosecutor general of the court of cassation; the prosecutor general in charge of judicial affairs; the ministry of justice general inspector; and the president of the Housing Court. The law would create an independent electoral commission to supervise the elections.

However, this proposal is weak with regard to representation of judges when it comes to the all-important area of discipline, Human Rights Watch said. The elected members of the new council would include two judges for each of three judicial grades. When the council sits as a disciplinary body, only the two from the same grade as the magistrate to be disciplined would participate along with the five members appointed by the executive, giving the judges only minority representation in disciplinary proceedings.

The draft furthermore would give the prime minister discretionary power to accept or reject the decisions of the council regarding appointments, promotions, and transfers of judges, thus perpetuating effective executive control over the judiciary.

A positive feature of the draft law is that it would restore the right of judges to appeal decisions of the Judicial Council before the Administrative Tribunal. This would conform with international standards, Human Rights Watch said. For example the United Nations Basic Principles on the Independence of the Judiciary guarantee the right “to an independent review of decisions of disciplinary, suspension or removal proceedings.”

In other respects, however, the draft law does not contain sufficient guarantees for the job security of judges, a pillar of judicial independence. The principle of security of tenure is enshrined in several international and regional standards, such as the Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Fair Trial and Legal Assistance in Africa, adopted by the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights. Those principles require that judges be suspended or removed only in exceptional circumstances and according to narrowly crafted objective criteria.

Under Law no. 67-29, the 1967 statute that governs most aspects of the judicial system and still needs to be overhauled, transfers of judges were allowed for “a need within the organization,” a broad concept that under Ben Ali facilitated punitive transfers of judges who acted independently. The draft law contains similarly broad language that permits the transfer of judges for “the requirements of judicial service.”

The draft law also does not sufficiently define the wrongdoings that warrant disciplinary measures, and refers only to current applicable laws. Under the 1967 law, the disciplinary council can take action on “any breach by a member of the judiciary of the duties of his office, or of honor or dignity.” By not specifying wrongdoings or corresponding sanctions, it leaves the door open for the executive to initiate disciplinary proceedings on arbitrary grounds.

The UN special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers has said that a law governing a judicial system should give detailed guidance on infractions by judges that would trigger disciplinary measures, and the gravity of the infraction necessary to warrant a specific disciplinary measure.

“An independent judiciary is a key pillar of a democratic government,” Goldstein said. “The assembly should adopt strong safeguards for judicial independence.”