The suffering of the people of Ain Dhokkara from the northwest of Tunisia, mainly represented by the depletion of the water table in the area and its pollution by carrying out extractive operations on the part of the owner of a section, which led to the destruction of some housing and business damage, and the pollution of the water source, which is the lifeblood of the people of the region. This pollution resulted in the land drying out and contamination of the fauna and flora.
Difficulties and obstacles:
The residents of the area filed a complaint that was manipulated by the security authorities and stalled in favor of the owner of the extraction section, and despite the residents being satisfied with their simple self-resources and not asking the state for any of its development rights, they were nonetheless restricted by the major businessmen, with clear disregard from the state, and even support for these abuses at the judicial and administrative level.
DAAM Center Notes:
Ensuring access to economic justice does not necessarily mean crushing the right to life, nor should it deprive citizens of their right to resort to an independent judiciary that allows them to implement their right to a fair trial including their right to defense and confrontation.
SIS is a leading brand in the field of conformity assessment and safety assessment of equipment, facilities and structures located in the governorate of Tataouine.
SIS is centered around two activities:
First: technical expertise and control
Second, the technical examination
Difficulties and obstacles:
Among the most prominent administrative problems, we find that the company is prevented from enjoying the privileges enshrined in the investment law. This problem is due to the lack of a unified interpretation of the laws between the various departments. Regionalization also appeared in dealing with the investor, as he was unable to benefit from the support of the National Social Security Fund because he and the workers are not from the region of Tataouine.
The problems largely surpassed the administrative hurdles to extend to judicial ones, as the company owner was accused of not paying the resource deduction and was threatened with imprisonment, although he had paid.
DAAM Center Notes:
The weakness of the administrative services that deal with files in a personal and subjective manner leads to the rooting of the principle of regionalism originally enshrined in people’s minds. This personal approach taken to evaluate files confirms the weakness of the digital services of the administration, as the latter is, ab initio, characterized by its objectivity. In addition to this, such dealing with the investor is a deprivation of justice economic, fiscal and financial, as the administration has distinguished and excluded wherever the law neither discriminated nor excluded. The fact that the economic institution is robbed of the incentives and privileges provided to it by virtue of the law, leads to it eventually abandoning the economic initiative.
Hichem Bouguerra is a Tunisian engineer who developed during his career to become an investor in the industrial field and an owner of projects around the country.
STEP is one of his companies that specializes in telecommunications and one of the largest exporting companies in Africa.
Difficulties and obstacles:
The company was exposed to administrative and judicial obstacles:
-Administrative Obstacles: the inflation in the laws that constrain the Tunisian legal system and the difficulty of implementation, because the administration is still subject to old texts that are not in tandem with today’s economic reality.
-Judicial obstacles: the length of the litigation period, which does not correspond to the dates of the establishment of the institutions, in addition to the large number of cases and the small number of judges. As a result, the possibilities of access to the judiciary and courts are weakened.
DAAM Center Notes:
The current situation of the judiciary, in relation to the experience lived by this company, posed many challenges regarding the procedures for filing the lawsuit, its establishment and its conduct. The judicial procedures are characterized by their slowness, which contradicts with the constant need for speed in the economic field despite the presence of specialized commercial circuits and thus, a competent judiciary.
Finally, the realistic combination of judicial slowness and administrative complexity is an obstacle to economic initiative. The company faced problems regarded as obstacles in accessing the judiciary and economic justice.
The problem is the harsh punishment of two young men for the accusation of sodomy, and the application of Article 230 of the Penal Code relating to the crime of sodomy.
Difficulties and obstacles:
In light of the defendants’ denials and relying only on their appearance and on confessions violently extracted from them, the case was diverted, and the formal procedures were violated by the investigative judge and neglected by the court. As usual, the issue of anal examination was raised. It is considered an international method of torture, especially in light of the refusal of the accused to take it. It also raises the issue of stretching legal criminal legislation, especially the vague provisions and articles, and tailoring their interpretation according to the public prosecution’s needs.
DAAM Center Notes:
هThese legal and judicial abuses essentially limit the right to effective access to justice, which is devoted to the rights and freedoms enshrined in the constitution and ratified treaties, which led to a severe punishment for the accused. These abuses represent a danger to the principle of fair trial, especially if the confession of the accused was the result of coercion and violence, as it is in this. The stretching of penal texts, which are normally governed by the principle of narrow interpretation of the law and are a sub-category of the principle of legality of crimes and penalties enshrined in texts of a higher degree than Article 230 of the Penal Code.
Latifa Hosni is a Tunisian journalist who decided to launch a touristic/agricultural project represented in a guest house in the Qena area, adjacent to the Mornag and Outhna regions, which she called “Dar Al Habayeb”.
Difficulties and obstacles:
-Administrative problems: the most prominent were the large number of demands and the length of time of obtaining response. For example, the administration rejected the project file on the pretext that Mrs. Latifa failed to include a paper proving that the used land was classified as a non-irrigated one. The problem is that extracting that paper required the submission of many demands in several departments. Also, the time to obtain the response to a request ranged between two and four months, especially since the administrations close their doors completely and without exceptions, during holidays, but it was finally clear, after her discussion with the Minister of Agriculture, that the land was essentially no longer irrigated for at least five and that the system was simply not updated.
DAAM Center Notes:
It's not just about lengthy procedures and heavy paperwork in this case. but also to their feasibility. In this example, the administrative data was not updated, and it took unnecessary money and effort to discover and solve the problem. These obstacles are one of the factors behind the reluctance to invest and lack of economic initiative.
Maher Abdel Rahman is a Tunisian producer who was initially a journalist in the public media in Tunisia. He also studied at the Institute of Journalism and information science (IPSI) in addition to his post-graduate studies of political science. He worked in one of the most renowned production companies in the world and produced important referential art-work. He started his company SPECTRUM which specializes in film, audio-visual and theater productions in Tunisia.
Difficulties and obstacles:
The company suffered immediately after its contact with the administration as a result of the illegal invasion of the Tunisian market by foreign companies, especially the Turkish ones. All the usual administrative complications were imposed upon Tunisian companies, while foreign companies operate in exemption of all heavy procedures without even having a legal presence in Tunisia. As such, they do not pay taxes and provide production services, while Tunisian companies pay large taxes.
Production companies in general are also faced with an arsenal of strange laws such as the demand to put value-added tax on invoices, even those dealing with projects intended for export, which is not an obligation enshrined in law, in addition to the intensive control and inflated taxes on work equipment that have led and still are leading to the bankruptcy of many institutions.
As for problems of a judicial nature, the video raises the issue of conflict of jurisdiction between the judiciary and the HAICA regulatory body, as both deny their jurisdiction in many cases, which contributes to deepening the gap between the economic actors, in this case the production companies, and the relevant authorities.
DAAM Center Notes:
The fiscal discrimination imposed on Tunisian companies, and the taxes on equipment raise questions about the administration and organization of the tax-collection authorities. Especially that the economic initiative is difficult in light of these laws.
Also, access to the judiciary for the first time, when it exists and when it has jurisdiction, is burdened with the issue of conflict of jurisdiction.
Is a transportation company that provides two types of services:
First: transporting people. the difference between intigo and other companies is that the means are motorcycles.
-Second: Transporting goods, through using modern technologies which allow the tracking of the driver and a transparency as for the price.
Difficulties and obstacles:
Difficulties and obstacles that Intigo has suffered from during the project:
Administrative problems which developed afterwards to judicial ones. Among the problems faced, is the opposition if faces from taxis, which escalated violence, dragging and harassment. Also, the issue of bureaucracy and the complexity of administrative procedures. The biggest hurdle is the lack of knowledge of the structure responsible for solving these problems not only by the investor but also by the relevant administrations.
DAAM Center Notes:
This administrative interference and the inability of the administration itself to choose creates an atrophy in the will of the investor, as well as the absence of the state in relation to achieving economic justice leads to unions monopolizing the market, in complete contradiction with the normal and natural role of unions, and a rejection to the principle of free competition and suppressing it with violence.