By Tyler Yates
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

TUNIS, Tunisia — Planned changes to the Tunisian Constitution show that the Islamist-led government will focus on democracy, human rights, and a free-market economy.  Religion will effectively be left out of the document when it is finalized.

The government has decided not to introduce Shar’ia law or any other Islamic concepts into the constitution, and alter its already secular nature.

“We are against trying to impose a particular way of life,” said Ennahda leader Rachid Ghannouchi, a lifelong Islamist activist jailed and exiled under previous regimes.

Critics, both foreign and Tunisian, have expressed fear that Ennahda, a moderate Islamist party that won 41.7 percent of the vote in Tunisia’s first free election on 23 October, would try to impose its religious principles on the relatively secular Muslim country.

Ennahda and the minority parties that came in below them in the election formed an assembly to begin the long process of amending the constitution.

The politicians have made it clear that the new assembly was created to reassure Tunisian voters, foreign tourists, and the investors vital to its economy.

There was a consensus amongst the parties who amended the constitution to keep the first article, which lists Tunisia’s language as Arabic and its religion as Islam.

“This is just a description of reality,” said Ghannouchi.  “It doesn’t have any legal implications.  There will be no other references to religion in the constitution.  We want to provide freedom for the whole country.”

A number of Ghannouchi’s reformist Islamist writings in the 1980s and 1990s influenced Turkey’s current mixture of Islam and democracy.  Tunisia, like Turkey, had decades of secularist dictatorships before evolving into a democracy where moderate Islamists have emerged as a viable political force.

“Law by itself doesn’t change reality,” Ghannouchi said.  “There shouldn’t be any law to try and make people more religious.”

The Ennahda leader views Shar’ia law as a set of moral values for individuals and societies rather than a code to be imposed by a country’s legal system. “Egypt says Shar’ia is the main source of its law, but that didn’t prevent (deposed President) Mubarek from being a dictator.”

The amended constitution will also reflect changes towards furthering women’s rights, however the parties would not agree to include the country’s liberal Personal Status Code in the constitution.  These writes will be protected instead by legislation.

The biggest disagreement between the parties amending the constitution was over whether Tunisia should opt for a British parliamentary system, or a French-styled mix of a directly elected President and a parliament.

The realities of the coalition parties and the need for a two-thirds majority to approve the new constitution will likely force all parties to seek a broad consensus.

There is a hope that Tunisia will be able to build a democracy compatible with Islam that could be used by other Arab countries.

The new constitution is due in approximately a year.

For more information, please see:

Al Arabiya — Tunisia’s Islamist-led government rejects laws to enforce religion — 05 Nov. 2011

Daily Times — Tunisian constitution will make no place for faith — 05 Nov. 2011

Reuters — Tunisia’s Islamist-led govt sees little place for religion in revised constitution — 04 Nov. 2011

Voice of America — Islam in Tunisia – Will Ennahda Win Usher in Religious Reform? — 03 Nov. 2011

Los Angeles Times — Tunisia vote could shape religion in public life — 22 Oct. 2011