Contrary to a restrictive interpretation often put forward in public debate, the Senegalese Constitution does not in any way prohibit the President of the Republic from referring a law to the Constitutional Council after having requested a second reading.

A combined analysis of articles 73, 74 and 75 demonstrates, on the contrary, that these two prerogatives are distinct, complementary and legally compatible.

Article 73 grants the President of the Republic political power: the power to request, before promulgation, a new deliberation of the law by the National Assembly.

This request suspends the ordinary legislative process and obliges the Assembly to re-examine the text. After this second reading, the law can only be adopted by a qualified majority of three-fifths.

Article 73 does not contain any provision subsequently depriving the President of his right to refer matters to the Constitutional Council.

In constitutional law, a power recognized by the Constitution cannot be considered as abolished or limited without an express provision.

Article 74, for its part, explicitly grants the President of the Republic the power to refer a matter to the Constitutional Council "within six clear days of its transmission to him as definitively adopted." The crucial point lies in the phrase "definitively adopted law."

A law that has undergone a second reading becomes definitively adopted after the National Assembly's second vote. Consequently, a new transmission of the text to the President is necessary, restarting the six-day period stipulated in Article 74.

Article 75 reinforces this interpretation. It stipulates that:

"The promulgation period is suspended until the conclusion of the second deliberation by the National Assembly or the decision of the Constitutional Council declaring the law in conformity with the Constitution."

The use of the term "or" identifies the two distinct causes for suspending the promulgation period: either the second deliberation or the constitutional review.

These mechanisms can perfectly follow one another.

No constitutional provision states that the request for a second reading exhausts or cancels the right to refer the matter to the Constitutional Council.

This interpretation is, moreover, consistent with the general logic of the rule of law. The second reading follows a political and parliamentary logic: to allow for a re-examination of the text. Referral to the Constitutional Council follows a jurisdictional logic: to verify, in this case, after a second reading, the law's conformity with the Constitution. The two forms of review have neither the same purpose nor the same nature.

Thus, legally, President Bassirou Diomaye Faye can indeed refer the matter to the Constitutional Council after requesting a second reading of a law, since the text has been definitively adopted following this new deliberation.

The ball is therefore in his court if his will is truly to obtain a clear, impartial and definitive explanation of the provisions that specifically motivated this second reading.

Appealing to the Constitutional Council would allow us to move beyond the political debate and into the realm of law.

Thierno Bocoum

President of AGIR-LES LEADERS