Salient Constitutional Changes

When President Kais Saied on June 30 published the draft of a new constitution that was put to a referendum on July 25, 2022, many analysts were quick to say the new constitution envisions an authoritarian, hyper-Presidential system with few checks on Saied’s power. Several days after the referendum that endorsed the new constitution (to go operational on August 30, 2022), the debate on whether the entire process of drafting a new constitution has been illegitimate rages on. A close examination of some salient articles of the constitution reveals that, there has been a constitutional “tsunami”.
Instead of a two-headed executive where the President had to share power with a prime Minister chosen by parliament, the President will now be the ultimate authority, choose the prime Minister, present laws to parliament, and appoint judges. The new constitution maintains the two-term limit on the presidency (art. 90), but removes the provision in the 2014 constitution stating that the constitution may not be amended to increase the number of terms (art. 75).
The new constitution removes almost all legislative and judicial checks on the President. Parliament can no longer impeach the President, with the new constitution dropping article 88 of the 2014 constitution. The legislature can still force the prime Minister to resign (article 115), though only after a two-thirds vote (used to require a simple majority) and only once in its term, if parliament tries a second time, the President can dissolve parliament (article 116).
The President’s state of emergency clause has been changed with the parliament and constitutional court no longer having the power to end the President’s assu...