Constitutional Court to hear case on dissolution of political parties in Mali

A court in Bamako on Monday referred the dispute over the dissolution of political parties – a decision of the ruling junta which the opposition is seeking to overturn – to Mali’s Constitutional Court.

The court’s decision, confirmed by lawyers representing the banned political parties, followed the junta’s announcement in May that political parties and organisations of a political nature across the country would be banned.

The move was the latest in a series of restrictions on civil liberties introduced by the military rulers, who came to power in back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021.

Members of the parties filed appeals to several courts in Bamako, seeking to challenge the legality of the presidential decree enacting their dissolution and its consequences.

The courts initially rejected the opposition parties’ appeals, prompting them to take the case to the Bamako High Court.

That court on Monday ordered “the transfer of the case to the Constitutional Court via the Supreme Court”, according to the lawyers’ statement.

This “represents a historic opportunity for the Constitutional Court to reaffirm its role. It must determine, in law, whether an authority can, by decree and in defiance of constitutional provisions, suspend the most fundamental political rights”, they said.

About 300 political groups have been identified in Mali to date and the junta maintains that dissolution is a way of streamlining numbers.

Mali has been gripped since 2012 by violence from jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group as well as local criminal gangs.