Senegal supreme court refuses to rule on sonko’s parliamentary seat

The Supreme Court of Senegal has refused to make a ruling in an emergency on the issue of Ousmane Sonko’s eligibility as a parliamentarian, deeming it an internal matter for the legislative institution.

This decision follows a petition from the National Union of Independent Senators, which contested the legitimacy of the procedure that allowed President of Pastef to regain his seat before being appointed head of the National Assembly.

This new judicial proceeding adds to the one already decided by the Constitutional Council, which itself declared itself incompetent in June last year to examine a similar appeal submitted by 18 opposition deputies, ruling that the contested act was not directly related to the electoral process and therefore fell outside its jurisdiction over election regularity.

Two separate high courts, the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Council, have now both abstained from making a decision on the substance of the challenge aimed at Sonko’s return to parliament.

The lawyer Amadou Guèye has strongly criticized the Supreme Court’s stance, viewing it as an act of defiance and a contributor to judicial disorder. This move fits into the ongoing criticism by several lawyers and politicians from the opposition who denounce what they consider to be a lack of jurisdiction in this case, while Sonko himself had denounced a conspiracy orchestrated by his opponents through these successive appeals, which he saw as driven by political logic rather than legal.

The judge refused to make an emergency ruling, leaving the verdict on the appeal pending, thus maintaining uncertainty over the final outcome of this judicial saga. This case continues to symbolize the tensions between the parliamentary majority backing Ousmane Sonko and a portion of the opposition, which has been multiplying contentious initiatives without yet achieving success before the courts.