Tunisia 2022 Constitution — Article 5 (state-religion clause) and surrounding context, drafted under Kais Saied, ratified by referendum 25 Jul 2022 (English translation of Arabic original)

Constitutional text drafted under President Kais Saied, published in the Official Gazette 30 June 2022 (amended 8 July 2022), ratified by referendum 25 July 2022. The 2022 Constitution replaced Tunisia's 2014 Constitution and concentrates executive power in the presidency.

**Article 5 (the state-religion clause, as amended 8 July 2022):**

"Tunisia is part of the Islamic Umma, and it is incumbent on the state alone to work to achieve the purposes of Islam in preserving the soul, honor, property, religion, and freedom — within the framework of a democratic system."

*Context: This replaces the 2014 Constitution's Article 1 formulation ("Tunisia is a free, independent, sovereign state; its religion is Islam, its language is Arabic, and its system is republican"), which had been the standard since the 1959 constitution and was a self-conscious compromise during the 2014 drafting. The 2022 Article 5 is significantly stronger — it makes the state itself responsible for achieving "the purposes of Islam" (maqasid al-shari'a) over five domains: soul, honor, property, religion, and freedom — the classical maqasid list. The "within a democratic system" clause was added by Saied 8 days into the public-consultation window in response to secularist criticism.*

**Article 96 (emergency powers)** authorises the President to take "any measures necessitated" in case of "imminent danger" jeopardizing the nation — a direct continuation of the 2014 Constitution's Article 80 framework that Saied invoked on 25 July 2021 to suspend Parliament and assume executive authority.

**The preamble opens** (English translation per the Tunisia Coup translation host, 13 Jul 2022; with corroborating verbatim from Foreign Policy 6 Jul 2022):

"We, the sovereign Tunisian people, having reached an unprecedented historic rise starting from December 17th, 2010, in our revolution against injustice, tyranny, starvation, and deprivation of all the necessities of life. We, the Tunisian people, having shown patience and endurance for more than a decade after this blessed revolution, did not relent in seeking our legitimate demands for work, freedom, and national dignity. Yet we received nothing but fake slogans and empty promises while corruption spread even more and the usurpation of our national resources and public funds went on unpunished. **It became necessary, out of our deep feeling of historic responsibility, therefore, to correct the direction of the revolution and even that of history itself.**"

The 2022 preamble notably DROPS the 2014 Constitution's references to "universal human rights" and to "equality between all" citizens.