The Tunisian Bar to the test of authoritarianism: professional and political movements in Ben Ali's Tunisia (1990–2007)

Abstract

The recent history of the Tunisian Bar is symptomatic of the repeated attempts and difficulties encountered by President Ben Ali's authoritarian regime in dominating a profession whose purpose, according to representatives, is to guarantee defendants' rights and respect for the Rule of Law. In fact, the Tunisian authorities are faced with a dilemma. On the one hand, they are unable to meet the professional demands from the legal profession because it would increase the autonomy of the Bar and strengthen their ability to oppose the authoritarian order. On the other hand, dismissal of the lawyers' demands sets off professional movements which then take a political turn leading to a series of protest-repression cycles in relations between the Bar and the Tunisian government. The various episodes of lawyers' mobilisation have shown that, in the Tunisian authoritarian context, a claim of professional autonomy is tantamount to a highly political demand in the eyes of the government. The sector-specific nature of the lawyers' protests has enabled the Ben Ali regime to overcome them relatively easily. Admittedly, lawyers as a group are particularly sensitive to the vagaries of the Tunisian authoritarian modes of government, but the mobilisation of the National Bar Association is limited to only one sector and to the control of this sector. The government's coercion policy has proved successful insofar as it has prevented the development of a cross-mobilisation of multiple sectors of social life, a development that would likely destabilise the Tunisian political system.