Recht in Afrika (May 2018)

Les modalités d’exercice du recours individuel en inconstitutionnalité en droit positif congolais entre ambiguïté et nécessité de réforme juridiques

  • Balingene Kahombo

DOI
https://doi.org/10.5771/2363-6270-2017-2-118
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 20, no. 2
pp. 118 – 146

Abstract

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This paper examines the individual recourse for unconstitutionality under the Congolese Constitution of 18 February 2006. It focuses on practical modalities for its exercise rather than analysing the merits of cases dealt with by the Congolese Constitutional Court. This recourse is now affected by the ambiguity of its legal framework, which has reduced the scope of article 162(2) of the Constitution and its efficacy, because of a misunderstanding created by the Organic Law of 15 October 2013 and the diverging jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Justice and the Constitutional Court. This ambiguity is contrary to the aspirations of the Congolese people to democracy, respect for human rights, legal security and rule of law which have informed the opening of constitutional justice to individuals in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In order to get out of this situation, the author recom- mends several legislative amendments or an appropriate jurisprudential option by the Con- stitutional Court concerning the basis of its competence ratione materiae and the admissi- bility of individual recourses submitted to its appreciation.