Appointment of members to the Truth and Dignity Commission in Tunisia: a call for transparency

Tunis, 8 February 2017 – Nine civil society organisations in Tunisia, including ASF, are calling on the temporary Special Committee tasked with examining and sorting applications to the Truth and Dignity Commission (Instance Vérité et Dignité, IVD) to respect the provisions of the transitional justice law with regard to the procedure for appointing IVD members. This is the second appeal made by the monitoring committee following the recommendations of the National congress on transitional justice in November 2016. In the first, on 21 November 2016, the same organisations called on Tunisian members of parliament to take responsibility and appoint new commissioners to the IVD without delay. The Assembly of the Representatives of the People responded with a resolution on 21 December 2016 (Official Gazette of the Republic of Tunisia n°105, 27 December 2016) opening applications for the three unfilled member positions on the IVD. Tunisian justice law outlines the specific provisions and procedures governing the appointment of IVD members. Articles 23 and 22 of the law require, among other things, the list of applications received to be published in the Official Gazette and on the website of the Assembly of Representatives. However, the list of candidates and the procedure for sorting and assessing applications are both yet to be disclosed, and any opposition lodged against applications received and subsequent decisions by the Commission responsible for examining and sorting these have not been made public. As a result, nine national and international civil society organisations are calling on the Commission to ensure that the principles of transparency, neutrality, impartiality and gender proportionality set out in law are respected during the processing of applications. And they say this must happen as soon as possible. >> Read the full text of their message in French and in Arabic.

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