A panel discussion of Constitutional Law experts was held in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, on Saturday July 11, as part of the Working Group Project implemented by the Arab Association of Constitutional Law (AACL) to study constitutional developments and democratic transition in Sudan and Algeria.
During the panel, research papers that tackled various topics were presented. Topics included decentralization in the constitutional document and constitutional reform options; judicial reform as a requirement to transitional justice; the challenges of the transitional period in Sudan and constitution-making from the perspective of the constitutional document; the problematic of the constitutional relationship between religion and state in Sudan; and the presidential system as a constitutional alternative for political stability.
The participants in the discussion included Dr. Tarek Majzoub, advisor to the Sudanese Ministry of Justice; Dr. Sawsan Shandi, Judge at the Sudanese Supreme Court and dean at the Judicial and Legal Sciences Institute; Dr. Ibtisam al-Sanhori, professor at the University of Khartoum; Dr. Zohal al-Amin, professor at Neelain University and Professor Sateh al-Haj, member of the Legal Constitution Drafting Committee.
The discussion that was hosted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) featured interventions via videoconference from Mr. Ahmed el-Gaili
, expert on constitutional disputes, and Mr. Abdelkhalig Shaib, an attorney, in addition to the participation of an AACL representative.
The project aims at forming groups of experts concerned with Sudanese and Algerian affairs to interact together, in coordination with the AACL executive office, with the purpose of encouraging the exchange of ideas and expanding the discussion to include more pressing topics in both countries, including writing research papers and specialized articles that the organization will publish in the coming months.
The AACL is the first regional network of constitution-making experts established in 2013 to contribute to the efforts of democratic transition in the Arab region by fostering legal education in the region, offering rigourous in-depth technical studies, focusing on the future of constitutional frameworks in the region, and putting their expertise at the disposal of reform efforts in all countries of the Middle East and North Africa region.
