The new arab constitutions and fighting corruption : a comparative study of Tunisia, Morocco, and Egypt

Les constitutions tunisienne, marocaine et égyptienne adoptées à l’aube des manifestations qui ont touché la région en 2011 contiennent des dispositions qui limitent l'expansion de la corruption politique et administrative. La transposition de ces dispositions constitutionnelles par des textes législatifs est assurée par la mise en place d’une stratégie nationale de lutte contre la corruption. Néanmoins, la reconnaissance et le respect des dispositions anticorruptions ne peut se faire sans l’étude de la force normative de la Constitution dans le système juridique de ces pays, qui est reliée à notre avis au contexte historique du droit constitutionnel dans les pays arabes. S’ajoute également l’influence que peut jouer le droit musulman sur les Constitutions de ces pays étudiés (le Maroc, la Tunisie et l’Égypte) au sein desquels la population est majoritairement de confession musulmane. Se pose ensuite la question de la protection de ces dispositions anticorruptions assurée par les Cours constitutionnelles, gardiennes de la Constitution mais également par les organisations et associations qui voient leur influence accroître notamment en raison du soutien populaire et international dont elles bénéficient.In the early months of 2011, a wave of protests in different Arab countries evolved into what is now known as: The Arab Spring. Some regimes fell and others succeeded to maintain their powers, but the juridical impact was mainly the same: the adoption of a new Constitution. Constitutional change was inevitable in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco and anticorruption measures were the highlight of this change. The new Constitutions were designed to target both political and administrative corruption. The implementation of these constitutional mechanisms is to be assured by national anti-corruption strategies that were put in place. The study of the feasibility and efficiency of the application of these constitutional mechanisms cannot be done without examining the Constitution’s normative power in the above mentioned countries’ legal systems. Therefore, the legal, social and historical context within these states should be taken into consideration. Additionally, one should take into account the possible influences of Muslim law on these Constitutions given that the states in questions (Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt) have predominantly Muslim populations. Given the above, we explore how to prevent the violation of constitutional norms that target corruption. The constitutional judges ultimately find themselves playing a major role in assuring the respect of these norms. And when the executive control over the judicial behavior prevents the judges from doing so, then a new actor on the political scene: the civil society, could eventually play a major role in ensuring the implementation of the Constitution