Benin has witnessed almost three decade of bloody dictatorship. To overcome that, Benin initiated the resolution of the recurring political conflicts through the holding of a national conference in February 1990. This national conference marked the inauguration of similar national political forums in francophone African countries in the 1990s. In direct response to the repression and brutal abuses of the previous governments, the national conference took a number of major resolutions regarding the reform of key institutions. In fact, the new order of constitutional and democratic transformation has established a constitutional court with broad powers. The Court is a specialized institution and exercises exclusive jurisdiction over: control of constitutionality, general elections and conflict of attribution between public powers. Moreover, the Court was endowed with a singular individual constitutional complaint mechanism in francophone Africa that enables immediate and direct access to all citizens alleging human rights violations. Since its effective establishment in 1993 the Court has contributed to the consolidation of democracy and the respect of human rights in Benin through a very impressive and abundant jurisprudence. The Court empowered itself to provide guidance to political forces, namely the ruling majority and the opposition. Through interpretation of the constitution, the Court discovered its competence on constitutional amendment disputes and stopped many attempts of constitutional revision engaged by some actors of the political spectrum. The big innovation of Benin´s constitutional court is the discovery of a kind of supra-constitutional principle, the so-called “national consensus principle” and the enlargement of eternity clause in the constitution of Benin (hereafter: constitution) which protects fundamental values of the new democratic order. The Court has played an influential role particularly in constitutional amendments. It has enhanced some principles in the category of eternity clause in the constitution. All the temptations to amend the constitution in 2006, 2009 2011 and in 2017 have been failed. So far the 27-year-old constitution of Benin remains until now untouchable.
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