The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) condemns the Tunisian authorities’ recent arrest and detention of judge and former presidential candidate Mourad Messaoudi in violation of his rights to freedom from arbitrary detention and to a fair trial, and in violation of his judicial immunity.
“The illegal arrest and detention of Messaoudi is emblematic of the Tunisian authorities’ efforts to stymie the exercise of the right to participate in the conduct of public affairs in Tunisia,” said Saïd Benarbia, ICJ Middle East and North Africa Programme Director. “His arbitrary detention and any related criminal proceedings must cease immediately.”
On 5 August 2024, two months before the last Tunisian presidential elections to date, the Tunis Criminal Court of First Instance convicted Judge Messaoudi of “electoral offences” and sentenced him in absentia to eight months’ imprisonment with immediate effect. On 10 September 2024, the Tunis Court of Appeal, also in absentia, upheld both the guilty verdict and the sentence against Judge Messaoudi. As a result, Judge Messaoudi was disbarred from running in the presidential elections.
Given that he had not been summoned to the hearing of his initial trial before the Tunis Criminal Court of First Instance in August 2024, in February 2025, Judge Messaoudi challenged his initial in absentia conviction, as he was entitled to do in the exercise of his right to a fair trial. As a result, in the same month, the Tunis Criminal Court of First Instance held a re-trial, further to which it set aside the in absentia verdict, re-convicted Judge Messaoudi on the same charges, and handed down a new eight-month term of imprisonment, this time without immediate effect. In May 2025, Judge Messaoudi lodged an appeal against both the verdict and sentence and is currently awaiting a hearing date.
Judge Messaoudi has also challenged the September 2024 Tunis Court of Appeal’s in absentia decision upholding the August 2024 Tunis Criminal Court of First Instance’s verdict and sentence; his challenge is to be heard on 5 September 2025.
Notwithstanding his ongoing challenge and outstanding appeal, on 15 August 2025, the Tunisian authorities arrested Judge Messaoudi and have detained him at Mornaguia Prison, near Tunis, since then. Moreover, they held Judge Messaoudi incommunicado, without disclosing his whereabouts to his lawyer or family, for approximately two days. Ostensibly, his recent arrest and ongoing detention stem from the authorities’ intention to have him serve the initial in absentia sentence handed down against Judge Messaoudi by the Tunis Criminal Court of First Instance in August 2024, notwithstanding the fact that it had been set aside, and so is no longer enforceable.
Judge Messaoudi was one of 57 judges and prosecutors arbitrarily dismissed by President Kaïs Saïed without any due process in June 2022. However, in August 2022, pending a decision on the merits of a challenge brought by those dismissed against their dismissal, the President of the Tunisian Administrative Court suspended Judge Messaoudi’s dismissal and ordered his reinstatement, along with that of 48 others, on the basis that, prima facie, there was no evidence of any wrongdoing on their part. While the Ministry of Justice has thus far failed to implement the Court’s order to reinstate the 49 judges and prosecutors, the Administrative Court’s decision guarantees Judge Messaoudi and the 48 other judges and prosecutors’ continued entitlement to immunity from prosecution. Indeed, under the 2022 Constitution and Law 67-29 on the Organization of the Judiciary and the Statute of Magistrates, a judge or prosecutor’s immunity from prosecution or arrest can only be lifted by order of the High Judicial Council. Nevertheless, Judge Messaoudi was prosecuted, tried, convicted and recently arrested and detained without any judicial council’s decision to remove his immunity.
The recent case against Judge Messaoudi is but the latest example of the Tunisian authorities’ resort to arbitrary judicial proceedings against members of the judiciary who will not toe the line. On 2 December 2024, Judge Hammadi Rahmani, also one of the 57 judges dismissed by President Kaïs Saïed in June 2022, was arrested after the senior investigating judge at the Tunis Court of First Instance issued six arrest warrants against him, despite the Administrative Court’s President suspending his dismissal and despite no order lifting his immunity from prosecution having been issued. Moreover, in April 2025, the Tunis Criminal Court of First Instance convicted and sentenced Judge Rahmani in absentia to a total of three years’ imprisonment on charges of “insulting others on social media”, in violation of his right to freedom of expression and of his judicial immunity.
The ICJ calls on the Tunisian authorities to:
- immediately release Judge Messaoudi and quash his conviction and sentence:
- cease their attacks on judges and prosecutors;
- re-establish an independent High Judicial Council with responsibility for the discipline and dismissal of judges and prosecutors; and
- ensure that all alleged wrongdoing by members of the judiciary be investigated and prosecuted, when warranted by the evidence, in line with the law, including with full respect for judicial immunity from prosecution.
The ICJ reiterates that all decisions to prosecute judges and prosecutors for alleged wrongdoing must only be made further to decisions of an independent High Judicial Council to lift judicial immunity.
Background
In accordance with international standards, judges accused of wrongdoing in their professional capacity are entitled to a fair hearing with recourse to an independent review. Judges may only be subject to suspension or removal “for reasons of incapacity or behaviour that renders them unfit to discharge their duties”.
The ICJ has documented how many of the dismissed judges and prosecutors were subjected to arbitrary prosecution solely because of their legitimate exercise of their prosecutorial and judicial functions, for the legitimate exercise of human rights guaranteed by international human rights law or for private conduct, unrelated to their performance of their duties, which, in any event, was not criminal in nature.
Additionally, in 2022, President Saïed, in violation of the 2014 Constitution, dissolved the High Judicial Council, and replaced it with a Temporary High Judicial Council, which, in any event, is no longer operational due to the Ministry of Justice’s failure, over the past two years, to fill some of the senior judicial positions who are ex officio members of the Council. Consequently, there is currently no means by which judicial immunity may be lifted in Tunisia.
On 3 October 2024, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights issued an order for provisional measures against Tunisia requiring the Tunisian authorities to stay implementation of: (i) the decree-law granting to the President the power to dismiss judges and prosecutors without due process; and (ii) of the presidential order dismissing the four dismissed judges and prosecutors who had seized the African Court, including Judge Rahmani. To date, the Tunisian authorities have failed to implement this binding decision.
On 13 November 2024, the same Court issued a judgment ordering Tunisia to repeal the decree-law dissolving the High Judicial Council and to reinstate the said Council within six months. Again, the Tunisian authorities have failed to implement this binding decision.
With regard to the 2024 presidential elections, from the beginning of the electoral period on 19 July 2024, the Tunisian authorities convicted and sentenced at least nine prospective presidential candidates, including Judge Messaoudi, for purported “electoral offences”, thus disqualifying them from the electoral process. Additionally, Tunisia’s Independent High Authority for Elections, whose members are appointed by the President, disbarred all but two presidential candidates from running against incumbent Kaïs Saïed. One of the two, Ayachi Zammel, was subsequently convicted of multiple “electoral offences” between July and October 2024, leading to him being sentenced to over 12 years’ imprisonment.
Contact
Saïd Benarbia, Director, ICJ Middle East and North Africa Programme; t: +41 22 979 3800, e: said.benarbia@icj.org
Nour Al Hajj, Communications & Advocacy Officer, ICJ Middle East and North Africa Programme; e: nour.alhajj@icj.org
