Tunisia: Understanding Conflict 2012 - Johns Hopkins School of ...

Recommendations
• NCA and political parties should conceive and implement a public outreach
strategy in order to manage public expectations and to educate them about the
significance of the task at hand. Civic education programs should have national
coverage and be perceived as emanating from a neutral source. This should include
further clarification about the distinct mandate of the NCA as both a constitutional
body and a body with semi-legislative powers. The importance of both aspects of its
mandate should be stressed.
• The NCA, with technical assistance from the international community, should
take steps to address some of the perverse incentives currently faced by
constituents who, on the one hand, need to compromise to reach an agreement, but
on the other need to posture for elections taking place in November. Delaying the
elections is likely to be disruptive and further erode public trust in the NCA, but the
inclusion of more informal and private mechanisms for reaching agreements on
constitutional articles could be considered as an alternative.
• The NCA should protect its own legitimacy and that of the draft constitution it
will produce by not over-stepping its mandate as a body. While the NCA is an
important body, it should have a limited scope in terms of the creation and
implementation of policy. Its primary task is to provide the framework for future
policymaking.
• The NCA, with technical assistance from the international community, should
further enhance this legitimacy through formalizing civil society engagement
with the process. Establishing strong and institutionalized relationships between the
NCA and civil society forums will help the new constitution to be seen as a genuinely
“national document,” rather than one that reflects the interests of particular groups.
This is crucial for the constitution to be a durable one.
• Interested parties should take lessons learned from the Tunisian case in order to
apply them to other post-Arab Spring constitution-drafting procedures. Although
writing constitutions, as highlighted, is not a one-size-fits-all process, careful
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