Tunisian judges say dissolving judicial council is a dangerous retreat

Tunisia's association of judges said on Sunday that President Kais Saied's decision to dissolve the North African country's supreme judicial council was a dangerous and unprecedented retreat from constitutional gains it had made.

The association, which is the most representative body for judges in Tunisia, in a statement that the move represented an effort to dominate the judiciary under a system in which all power is concentrated in the hands of the President.

Saied announced the decision overnight, the latest step in a consolidation of power after he dismissed parliament and sacked the prime minister in July, promising to remake Tunisia's democratic constitution in moves his critics call a coup.