(TAP) - National and international organisations have accused the President of the Republic Kais Saied of power grab in the absence of guarantees.

In a joint statement issued on Saturday, the signatories said the Presidential Decree 117 issued on Wednesday September 22 implies the abolition of parliament. This is a first step towards despotism, they warned. The organisations expressed their fear for human rights.

They added that international human rights law allows for exceptional prerogatives, but these must be subject to very strict conditions and be limited in time. They require, necessarily, a rigorous judicial control.

Any change to the political and constitutional system must be made within the framework of the constitution, which includes conditions for its revision, according to the same source.

The organisations that admit the limitations of the 2014 constitution call for ensuring that any change take into account the sovereignty of the law, the protection of human rights and the separation of powers.

Reforms should not be decided unilaterally, they said.

With Presidential Decree 117, which grants the president legislative powers in all areas, Kais Saied has reversed the rule by placing presidential decrees above the constitution.

The signatory organisations question, in their statement, the absence of measures relating to the fight against corruption and impunity in connection with the cases of the martyrs of the revolution and others like transitional justice, political assassinations and terrorism.

They insist on the pressing need for an action programme to get the country out of the economic crisis that has lasted for years.

The signatories are the Tunisian Organisation Against Torture, the Tunisian Women's Association for Development Research, the Beity Association, the Nachaz Association, the Democratic Laboratory, the Tunisian Association for the Defense of Individual Freedoms, the Tunisian League for Citizenship, Human rights Watch, Amnesty International (Tunis office), Lawyers without Borders, the Tunisian Alliance for Dignity and Rehabilitation, the Tunisian Network for Transitional Justice, the International Commission of Jurists, the World Organization Against Torture, the International Federation for Human Rights...