The Committee for the Respect of Freedoms and Human Rights in Tunisia (CRLDHT) fully endorses the condemnation issued by the Association of Tunisian Magistrates (AMT) regarding the increasing number of decisions by the executive branch to suspend magistrates, which are accompanied, in particular, by the withholding of salaries and, in some cases, are issued without written notice, justification, or a time limit. https://www.facebook.com/AmtTunisie/posts/pfbid02VgDz7wvp4u9YrrHhN1Jt4SvrcVj65y4gHiNqusxXQnW3f5KApF94SevpzT5zm2iol
The CRLDHT expresses, in particular, its full solidarity with the AMT and with Judge Mohamed Ben Meftah, a member of its Executive Board, who was suspended from his duties in August 2026 and deprived of his salary following several successive transfers. According to the AMT, the Ministry of Justice refused to provide him with a written copy of the decision, thereby depriving him of the basic safeguards that would allow him to understand the grounds for the decision and effectively exercise his right to appeal.
These practices are all the more serious given that they are taking place against a backdrop of the dismantling of institutional safeguards for judicial independence, marked by the dissolution of the High Council of the Judiciary and subsequently by the paralysis of the Provisional High Council. The vacuum thus created must not be used as a pretext for expanding the executive branch’s powers over judges’ careers and discipline.
Suspension for an indefinite period, accompanied by a loss of salary and imposed without effective disciplinary safeguards, effectively constitutes a form of disguised dismissal and a powerful means of exerting pressure, intimidating, and bringing judges into line. Beyond the individuals directly targeted, it is the independence of the entire judiciary that is threatened. When a judge must fear for their position, salary, or career because of their views or their commitment to independence, it is the right of every citizen to an independent and impartial justice system that is undermined.
The CRLDHT views with extreme concern the fact that these measures are now targeting a member of the AMT’s Executive Board, following the prosecution of its president, Anas Hmaïdi, and his sentencing to one year in prison with immediate imprisonment following a trial that the Association has denounced as failing to meet the basic guarantees of a fair trial. The mounting number of prosecutions, convictions, transfers, suspensions, and acts of pressure against judges cannot be downplayed: it reveals a determination to silence those voices within the judiciary itself that continue to defend its independence from the executive branch.
The CRLDHT expresses its full solidarity with Anas Hmaïdi, president of the AMT, with Mohamed Ben Meftah, and with all judges who have been subjected to repression, dismissals, arbitrary suspensions, punitive transfers, legal proceedings, and other forms of harassment and intimidation because of their commitment to the independence of the judiciary.
Attacking judges who refuse to give up their independence means seeking to crush all resistance within the judiciary and impose fear as a means of governing the judicial branch. Attacking their association, prosecuting its president, and targeting its leaders means seeking to silence one of the last organized forces that openly oppose the subjugation of the judiciary. It is no longer just the independence of judges that is under attack: it is the very ability of the judiciary to resist its subordination to the executive branch.
The CRLDHT joins the AMT in calling for the immediate lifting of the arbitrary suspensions, the reinstatement of the affected judges, the restoration of their salaries and all their rights, and an effective guarantee of their right to a defense and to an appeal before an independent body.
He demands an end to the use of transfers, suspensions, compensation, career advancement, and legal proceedings as tools to pressure, retaliate against, and subjugate judges.
Finally, the CRLDHT reaffirms the urgent need to end the executive branch’s stranglehold on the judiciary, to reestablish a truly independent and elected High Council of the Judiciary, to establish the Constitutional Court, and to uphold Tunisia’s international commitments regarding the independence of the judiciary and the right to a fair trial.
The CRLDHT reaffirms its unreserved solidarity with the Association of Tunisian Judges, its president Anas Hmaïdi, Mohamed Ben Meftah, and all judges who have been victims of repression. It calls on all democratic forces, human rights organizations, and professional judges’ associations—both in Tunisia and abroad—not to allow these abuses to become normalized.
Threatening judges is tantamount to threatening the rights and freedoms of society as a whole. The attempts to bring the judiciary to heel must stop.
Paris, September 2, 2026
