Mauritanian Parliament Speaker Mohamed Ould Mact defended sanctions he imposed on two opposition lawmakers after a sit-in inside the parliament building, a punishment that sparked much controversy and was strongly rejected by the opposition, which considered it evidence of the absence of separation of powers in the country. Several parliamentary blocs also denounced the sanctions decision, describing it as legally and politically invalid and contrary to the spirit of the constitution.

Last Monday, the Mauritanian parliament decided to temporarily expel lawmakers Mariam Cheikh and Qamo Ashour due to what it said were 'grave incidents' committed by the two deputies when they staged a sit-in inside the parliament building, which it considered an 'infringement on the sanctity, prestige, and proper functioning of the parliamentary institution.'

Mauritanian Parliament Speaker during a parliamentary session last Monday (Mauritanian Parliament)

The case began last April when police arrested the two lawmakers after they appeared in a live broadcast on Facebook that included statements described as 'personal insult' to the president. In May, the criminal chamber of the Western Nouakchott court convicted the two lawmakers and sentenced them to four years in prison. However, the appeals court reduced the sentence to two years and added a penalty barring them from political and civil rights for five years. They left prison under a presidential pardon.

But despite the presidential pardon, controversy intensified over the ban on their political and civil rights, especially after they were barred from entering the parliament building, even though the Constitutional Council issued a decision refusing to confirm the loss of parliamentary membership status for activists Mariam Cheikh and Qamo Ashour.

The controversy escalated when the two activists managed to enter parliament secretly in a car belonging to a deputy and decided to stage a sit-in to protest what they said was the government's attempt to prevent them from taking their parliamentary seats. However, after negotiations with the activists, the parliament speaker decided to resort to public force to compel them to end the sit-in, before deciding to punish them with temporary expulsion.

* Separate case

In a public parliamentary session yesterday (Tuesday), the parliament speaker said: 'We believe in the separation of powers, and no party can force us to make any decision we are not convinced of. What drives us is only the law and the internal regulations,' noting that the sanctions were imposed in accordance with parliament's internal regulations and in line with the constitution.

The parliament speaker added: 'We respect the Constitutional Council and its decisions, and no one will put us in conflict with the Constitutional Council or in confrontation with the judiciary,' stressing that the sanctions taken by parliament are separate from the judiciary's rulings and that he took the Constitutional Council's decision into account. He said: 'My duty as parliament speaker is to apply the law. If we had not taken the Constitutional Council's decision into account, we would not have imposed the penalty on them as deputies. But they do not have the right to exploit their parliamentary status to cause chaos and turn the parliament building into a platform outside official working hours.'

* Opposition rejection

Despite the parliament speaker's defense of his decisions, the opposition strongly rejected them. Opposition lawmaker Kadiatou Malick Diallo said the parliament presidency is 'evading the Constitutional Council's decision,' and explained during a parliamentary session that expelling deputies for a sit-in is unprecedented in the history of the Mauritanian parliament.

From a previous session of Mauritanian parliament members (Mauritanian Parliament)

Diallo added that opposition deputies had previously staged a two-day sit-in in the parliament building to protest the 2008 coup, 'and they were not expelled from parliament. We repeated that in 2019 when the parliamentary session was not opened when it should have been, always to defend the constitution.'

In this context, several parliamentary blocs denounced the sanctions decision, describing it as legally and politically invalid and contrary to the spirit of the constitution, and describing what is happening as a 'constitutional and institutional crisis' and a 'serious deviation' due to the obstruction of Constitutional Council decisions.

The opposition parliamentary blocs said in a joint statement that what the two activists experienced, from being barred from entering parliament and forcibly removed to being punished, represents 'an unprecedented legal and political paradox that can only be interpreted as an attempt to circumvent the Constitutional Council's decision and empty it of its content.'

The opposition decided to boycott some parliamentary sessions in protest against the procedure followed regarding lawmakers Qamo Ashour and Mariam Cheikh.