Sonko à l’Assemblée nationale : Bougar Diouf (UPS) répond à Me Me Demba Ciré Bathily
“Mr. Bathily, your analysis of the supposed automatic reinstatement of Ousmane Sonko to the National Assembly of Senegal raises serious legal and institutional concerns. Under the guise of doctrinal analysis, you are in reality attempting to impose a single interpretation of a deeply controversial issue.” This remark comes from the president of the Union of Senegalese Pan-Africanists (UPS), who felt compelled to respond to Mr. Demba Ciré Bathily with a statement entitled: “The law cannot be confiscated by political interpretation.”
Bougar Diouf explains that “the first problem lies in presenting the case as a ‘legal certainty.’ However, when a question divides legal experts, constitutional scholars, and institutional actors, no one can honestly claim to hold the sole truth of the law.” He reminds us that the role of the legal expert is not to impose a political conclusion under the guise of legal technicality, but to present, in a balanced manner, the different possible interpretations of the texts.
He continued: “Mr. Bathily, you are excessively minimizing the significance of the public statement made by Mr. Sonko himself when he announced that he had submitted his ‘letter of resignation.’ Such a statement, made publicly before the nation, cannot be reduced to a mere insignificant verbal slip.”
Bougar states that in public law, the intention expressed publicly by a political authority constitutes a serious element of assessment, especially when it produces major political and institutional effects.
Furthermore, he said, claiming that only an administrative letter of “suspension” is valid amounts to willfully ignoring the overall context of the case. He believes that the legal debate is not solely about a word written in a document, but about the consistency between actions, statements, and the resulting institutional consequences.
He also added: “The other major weakness in your reasoning concerns the role of the Bureau of the National Assembly of Senegal. Presenting it as a mere rubber-stamping body legally obligated to endorse automatic reinstatement is a questionable interpretation. The Bureau’s specific mission is to verify the regularity of parliamentary situations and assess their compliance with applicable laws, particularly in a context marked by the adoption of a new organic law in 2025.”
Finally, Bougar Diouf notes, “behind your legal vocabulary, your vision reveals a clearly political orientation. Your expressions such as ‘legal evidence’, ‘misleading public opinion’ or even ‘automatic application of texts’ reflect more of a flawed activist argument than a neutral and contradictory academic analysis.”
Ultimately, the president of the UPS believes that "the reinstatement of Ousmane Sonko cannot be presented as a mere formality devoid of debate. On the contrary, there are genuine legal, institutional, and political questions that deserve to be examined seriously, prudently, and impartially." For him, in a state governed by the rule of law, no interpretation, however skillful, should be imposed as absolute truth above the bounds of republican debate.
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