As Tunisia continues to grapple with a wave of judicial corruption scandals, the former head of the Court of Cassation has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.
It is one of the country’s most high-profile anti-corruption verdicts in living memory.
The Criminal Chamber for Financial Corruption at the Tunis Court of First Instance on Monday handed down the sentence to Tayeb Rached, the former First President of the Court of Cassation, after finding him guilty of corruption, money laundering, and falsification of official documents.
Two businessmen, Nejib Ben Ismaïl and Fethi Jenayeh, received sentences of 27 and 30 years respectively, while a dismissed judge was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The case was brought by the Special Prosecution Office at the Tunis Court of Appeal, which accused the defendants of forming a criminal network engaged in money laundering, active and passive corruption, incitement to corruption, and document forgery. The affair has exposed deep-rooted collusion between judges and business figures amid growing public distrust in Tunisia’s judiciary.
Tayeb Rached had already drawn public scrutiny in 2020 when an internal investigation uncovered unexplained financial flows worth several million dinars in his bank accounts. Despite repeated government pledges to reform the judicial sector, corruption scandals continue to tarnish the image of the judiciary, fueling accusations of politicisation and lack of transparency.
The case highlights the contradictions within Tunisia’s governance: while the government promotes a strong anti-corruption agenda, it continues to exert tight control over judicial institutions. The conviction of the former head of the Supreme Court sets a precedent in Tunisia’s recent history but has done little to ease concerns about the true independence of the judiciary.
The prosecutions, launched under President Kaïs Saïed, come amid a broader concentration of power and growing concerns among domestic and international NGOs over the erosion of the rule of law.
MK/ak/sf/lb/as/APA