In recent months, the debate on Macky Sall’s third candidacy has been led by his closest collaborators who are trying to justify it. In this general melee, an authorized voice stands out and attracts attention. This is the Minister of Justice, Ismaila Madior Fall, the same minister who thought and defended the 2016 constitutional reform. To the scientifically supported claims of the legal expert, who said urbi et orbi that the president would end his reign in 2024 if he was re-elected in 2019, come bump a very versatile position of the minister and partisan of the Head of State, who is doing everything in his power to find him arguments to reinvent a reading of the famous article 27 of the Constitution.
If the debate on Macky Sall’s third candidacy had been carried only by the big mouths of the presidential coalition, we could have hoped that the President of the Republic would come out of the big door in 2024, as the Constitution tells him. But when scientists, and even more, when the man who carried the 2016 reform likes to play the game of «neither yes nor no» of his Chief, there is reason to fear for the future of the rule of law and the stability of the country. This becomes all the more unacceptable as Minister Ismaila Madior Fall, then the Head of Justice, had sold the merits of the said reform in that it would make it possible to lock mandates to two, and this clearly. Judging by his dithering, we don’t know which saint to turn to.
To understand the versatility of the minister and Pr, Ismaila Madior Fall, we must go back to his outbursts against President Wade’s third term project. Fiercely opposed to the too many candidacies of Macky Sall’s predecessor, the law professor did not lack arguments to wear the estocade. “I heard President Wade himself say that he had locked down the Constitution and that this meant he could not do a third term. (…) Today, I consider that President Wade cannot hold a third term. Why? Because the statement of the President of the Republic is an important source in constitutional law,” he said in the Grand Jury broadcast of the Radio future media.
Sure of his knowledge, the professor managed to find the reasons for the illegality of Wade’s candidacy, both in the Constitution itself, as well as in the acts and gestures of the former Head of State. The President of the Republic has two qualities that allow him to authenticate the constitutional profile. First, argued Ismaila Madior Fall, he is its guardian. Second, he is its authentic interpreter. If I were a member of the Constitutional Council of Senegal—and I would be very happy if the President consulted me—I would say to him, Mr. President of the Republic, from all the information I have, according to the statement you made, according to my reading of the Constitution, you can’t do a third term,” he added.
On the possible third candidacy of Macky Sall, then Minister of Justice, Ismaila Madior Fall kicked the thesis of his counterparts, especially that of constitutional expert Babacar Guèye. To the latter who warned against a remake of the 2012 situation, the Keeper of the Seals had said, in 2017 on the RFM:” I realize that people do not read the texts. If people continue to say that it is possible for the President to serve a third term, I am thinking that we have not read the texts, including 27 which states very clearly that no one may serve more than two consecutive terms.
For him, there was no doubt that Macky Sall could not run for a third term.” The revision of the constitution is clear. This means that the question of the third mandate will no longer be raised in Senegal’s history. The constitution leaves no room for interpretation: no one may exercise more than two consecutive mandates.” This last sentence, he repeated it more than 3 times, as if to instill the idea in the minds of citizens.
he antithesis of the minister and partisan
Today, that is the exact opposite of the allegations cited by the same man. If he had maintained that Wade was bound by his word, he pretended not to have heard President Sall repeatedly support, in Senegal and abroad, before religious figures including, that his reign would end in 2024. Beyond these ethical and moral considerations, the law defended by Professor Ismaila Madior Fall, under Wade, remains the same and the situation has hardly changed.
However, when Ismaila Madior Fall was questioned in March 2021 on Tfm’s D’clique, he tried to dodge the question and served a response that says everything about him: My status as Minister of State prevents me from expressing myself. Because there is an obligation of reserve that weighs on me. However, it was as Minister of Justice that he personally invested in selling his boss’ reform plan. Why did he not mention the duty to reserve when he repeated over and over again that “no one may serve more than two consecutive terms”?
The greatest contradiction between the lawyer and the minister, who are mistaken for the same physical being, lies in his statement at the beginning of December, when he appeared before members of Parliament to vote on his budget. This opinion does not bear the force of res judicata. Therefore, to the competent court to say the Right, and to the Doctrine to give a scientific opinion,” he defended himself against those who questioned him about his earlier statements.
All this acrobatics on the part of the minister, on an issue as simple as the illegality or at least the immorality of Macky Sall’s candidacy augurs a manifest desire to push him to try one too many terms. The honour of the word of the Head of State must be the most reliable source of the right of a people thirsting for ethics and virtues. More than anyone, Ismaila Madior Fall, who advised Wade to keep his word, has no right to preach the opposite in an identical political and electoral context. The interests of the people and of science must come before his own and those of his Chief.
By Khalifa Ababacar Gaye / kagaye@senenews.com
