Sudan

Start date: 2013 (2002 - 2012 at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law)
Areas of expertise: Constitutional Law, Human Rights, Legislative and Constitutional Drafting, Legal Pluralism, Islamic Law, Electoral Law, Fundamental Principles of Governance, Independence of the Judiciary
Highlights: over 10 projects, 7+ seminars, 10+ workshops, 5+ roundtable conferences, 3+ Training of Trainers

Overview

Support to Constitutional and Legal Reform in the Republic of the Sudan

With its projects in Sudan, the Foundation continues the activities of the Global Knowledge Transfer Working Group of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (MPIL), which were initiated in the country back in 2002 under the auspices of the Foundation’s Managing Director and Director of MPIL at that time, Professor Rüdiger Wolfrum. Since 2014, the Foundation has focused its activities in Sudan on the support of the Sudanese endeavours towards a new constitution.

In 2014, the former Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir had called upon political forces and civil society in the country to take part in an inclusive National Dialogue addressing the enormous social, political, security, and economical challenges confronting the Republic. The National Dialogue was intended to culminate in an inclusive process of constitutional reform. However, while the National Dialogue Conference was eventually launched in October 2015, in the end, it did not materialise in an inclusive process, some of the major political parties refrained from participating. This further also delayed the envisaged constitutional process.

In reaction to the further deterioration of the economic situation in the country in April 2019, former President Omer Al-Bashir and his regime were overthrown by the military and the declaration of a transitional period of 39 months followed. The Interim National Constitution of the Republic of the Sudan of 2005 was first suspended and eventually replaced by the Constitutional Charter of 2019, which since then serves as Sudanese Interim Constitution. One of the decisive tasks foreseen in the Constitutional Charter is the implementation of a National Constitutional Conference to realise the drafting of a new constitution until the end of the transitional period. The Constitutional Process is thereby meant to follow a traditional design guaranteeing the participation of the parliament as well as of the public to ensure to be inclusive of all parties, including armed groups. At the end of the process, it is foreseen that the new constitution is to be put to a referendum. In addition to and besides the outlined constitutional reform, the Constitutional Charter calls for a wider range of legal and institutional reforms which have yet to materialise.

The Foundation has been supporting the Sudan’s commitments towards an inclusive constitutional reform with various projects particularly aimed at strengthening the legal capacities of relevant Sudanese stakeholders in the area of comparative constitutional law since 2014. Consequently, the Foundation continues to strengthen these efforts focusing its technical legal support besides the constitutional reform also on the wider legal and institutional reform. As always, the Foundation is implementing all projects by strictly adhering to its guiding principles of neutrality, independence and local ownership.