Rights
A 2020 constitution revised after the Hirak protests
The 2020 revision, approved by referendum on very low turnout, followed the 2019 Hirak movement and Bouteflika's resignation. It limits the President to two terms and creates a Constitutional Court in place of the former Council.
Key rules
- Jurisdiction — Unitary republic. The Constitutional Court replaced the Constitutional Council in 2020 and may be seised by individual referral in defined circumstances.
Governing law
- Constitution of Algeria 1996, as revised in 2016 and 2020
- Organic Law 22-19 on the Constitutional Court
- Article 2 — Islam is the religion of the state
In practice
The substantive novelty of the 2020 text is the conversion of the Constitutional Council into a Constitutional Court with a widened power of review, including a route for individuals to raise constitutionality through the courts, which did not previously exist. Whether that route is used meaningfully is the practical question. The two-term presidential limit restored a cap that had been removed in 2008 to permit a third Bouteflika term, and that removal was the proximate trigger for the 2019 protests. The military's constitutional role and the language on deploying forces abroad were also new. Turnout of roughly 24 per cent on the referendum is a material fact about the text's legitimacy that neutral description should record.