April 9, 2016
Stockholm, Sweden – This week ILAC hosted a delegation of highly placed Tunisian legal and judicial experts on an official visit to Stockholm that included meetings with some of Sweden’s most important judicial institutions and participation in the 2016 Stockholm Forum on Security and Development.
The Tunisian delegation included presidents of high-level courts, ministry officials, esteemed members from the bar association, heads of the anti-corruption agency and truth and dignity commission, and civil society (full participant list found here.)
Early feedback is that the delegation was a success and that the lessons learned from the Swedish justice system and the exchange of ideas on how to translate good practices to Tunisia were very well-received.
“I received an impression of an entirely different system. Seeing this other reality than that we are used to will help us in efforts to reform our system,” said Mr. Khaled Elayari, President of the Tunisian Court of Cassation. “I especially want to give the example from the Supreme Court, where we learned about how the Swedish system emphasizes putting resources into handling cases in the first instance and, accordingly, limits appeals to the higher courts on principled grounds, cutting processing times for cases to only 2-3 months. Even if we don’t copy this exactly in Tunisia, we see many factors and elements that we could try to integrate into our own justice system.”
The Tunisian delegation met with the Swedish Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Justice, as well as the High Court, the Supreme Administrative Court, the Prosecution Authority, the Parliamentary Ombudsman, the National Council for Crime Prevention, the Swedish Bar Association, and the Association “Criminals’ Return into Society.”
ILAC has been engaged in Tunisia since 2012 with a number of training and technical assistance programmes that aim to help rebuild the justice system so it is based on the rule of law and protects human rights.
Stay-tuned for video from the delegation and interviews with the esteemed participants!
