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AFRICAN COURT LAW REPORT VOLUME 1 (2006-2016)
Parliament, on 9 October 2001, adopted Law No 2001-634 establishing
the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC).
8. The attempted military coup d’état of 19 September 2002 which after
its failure transformed into a military-political rebellion did not make it
possible to see the new IEC at work.
9. In the ensuing political negotiations11 aimed at resolving the crisis,
Parliament, on 14 December 2004, adopted Law No 2004-642
amending the above mentioned Law No 2001-634 of 9 October 2001.
10. This IEC was composed of the representatives of the political
parties as well as those of the armed movements, members of the
rebellion.
11. Notwithstanding the advent of the said Law, it was only after the
conclusion of the Pretoria Agreement22 and the signing of Presidential
Decisions Nos. 200506/PR of 15 July 2005 and 2005-11/PR of 29
August 2005 that it became possible to establish the Central
Commission of the IEC in its current configuration.
12. This IEC was also temporary because Article 53 of the Presidential
decision 2005-06, above mentioned, provided that the mandate of
members of the said IEC was supposed to expire at the end of the
general elections of 2010.
13. It is therefore pursuant to the above provision that the Government
adopted and got the National Assembly to vote on 28 May 2014, that is,
slightly over one year before the general elections of 2015, the
aforementioned Law No 2014-335 impugned by the Applicant in the
instant case.
14. Two days after the adoption of the Law by the National Assembly,
Mr Kramo Kouassi, acting on behalf of a group of 29 parliamentarians
of the National Assembly, on 30 May 2014, seized the Constitutional
Council of Côte d’Ivoire with a prayer to declare four (4) provisions of
the aforesaid law (Articles 5, 15, 16 and 17) unconstitutional. According
to him, the provisions in question violate the right to equality before the
law enshrined in the Ivorian Constitution in its Article 2 which provides
that “All human beings are born free and equal before the law and
Article 33(1) which provides that “the suffrage shall be universal, free,
equal and secret”.
15. Mr Kramo Kouassi alleged that the presence within the IEC Central
Commission of a personal representative of the President of the
Republic and a personal representative of the President of the National
Assembly constitutes a breach of the principle of equality of candidates
given the fact that, according to him, the first can stand as a candidate
to succeed himself, and the latter also fulfils the eligibility requirements
set forth by the electoral law.
1
2
These negotiations which resulted in the Agreement known as Linas-Marcoussis
Agreement or Kléber Agreement took place in a meeting held from 15 to 26 January
2003 at Linas-Marcoussis, France, with the aim to put an end to the civil war which
had been raging since 2002.
The Agreement was signed on 6 April 2005.