North African nations, especially Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco, have been heavily affected by COVID-19 if compared to other African countries. Governments in North Africa took proactive legal measures to manage the virus threat, safeguarding population health, but also triggering repressive and invasive mechanisms that in some cases jeopardized basic freedoms and rights. This work will analyze comparatively the anti-COVID-19 legislations, pointing out how the legislative measures mirrored the level of transition of democracy, the opacity of some regimes, exploitation of the pandemic to foster repressive control, and highlighting the weakness of new democratic institutions unprepared to balance health security and democracy.

The existence of a constitutional control is the essential cornerstone in any democratic system. Without a constitutional justice it is impossible to maintain a pluralist democracy with a real rule of law. The Tunisian constitutional history is emblematic of the relevance of the constitutional review. This article outlines the difficult and hampered life of the Tunisian constitutional justice that crossed two authoritarian regimes: a “revolution”; and the transition to democracy. It is in the latter phase that the creation of the constitutional court proved to be the paramount element in the passage from a procedural democracy to a substantive democracy.

The president of Tunisia, Kais Saied, recurred to Article 80 of the constitution on 25 July 2021 to proclaim the “state of exception,” freezing parliamentary activities, removing the representatives’ immunity, and dissolving the government headed by Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi. The following presidential decree 2021-117 on 22 September granted him legislative powers by decree, dismantling the constitution of 2014, which was the cornerstone of the result of the “Jasmine Revolution” of 2011. This article will analyze the constitutionality of the presidential decrees and shed light on the juridical, socioeconomical, and political circumstances that allowed Saied to perform what can be described as a constitutional coup or a self-coup, which reshaped the future of Tunisia.

This article sheds light on the counter-terrorism measures enacted by the Maghreb countries, with a comparative approach of the laws in Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. Carried out by comparing the Arabic and French original versions, the analysis revealed a common attitude that tended to preserve national security at the expenses of civil freedoms and human rights. In almost all cases, anti-terrorism laws strayed away from their supposed initial finality – fighting terrorism – tackling other issues such as the maintenance of public order or indirectly the control of dissidence and political opposition, with no or scarce legal checks and balances that could restrict possible police or judiciary abuses towards civil and political rights. The legal measures significantly delayed both the first transition to democracy in the region in the 2000s as well as the promising development after the ‘Arab spring’.

Contemporary Algeria was born after 132 years of colonization and a bloody decolonization war that lasted almost eight years. The official version and the dominant historical narrative of the war of independence has been influencing the state-owned media, the process of memorialization and the education system for years. This article will focus on how history was manipulated and used to legitimate political power using ordinary legislation as well as the highest source of law: the constitution. This article argues that by studying Algerian legislation and the various constitutional charters we can obtain key insight into ways in which the triad of the state, the party, and the army has been able to reproduce and re-appropriate symbols and narratives of the nation through constitutional measures and/or amendments.