Comoros 2001 (rev. 2009) Historical

The Union of the Comoros shall be a Republic, consisting of the autonomous islands of Mwali (Mohéli), Maoré (Mayotte), Ndzuwani (Anjouan), N’gazidja (Grande Comore).

The national emblem shall be yellow, white, red, blue, a white crescent turned to the right and four white stars aligned from one end of the crescent to the other in an isosceles triangle on a green undercoat.

The national hymn shall be: Umodja Wa Massiwa.

The motto of the Union shall be “Unity-Solidarity-Development.”

An Act of the Union shall determine the seal of the Union.

The official languages shall be the Shikomor, the national language, French and Arabic.

Moroni shall be the capital of the Union. An Institutional Act shall fix the status of the city and determine the islands where the institutions of the Union have their seat.

Sovereignty shall vest in the people which shall exercise it, in each island and in the Union as a whole, through its elected representatives or by referendum. No section of the people nor any individual may arrogate to itself, or to himself, the exercise thereof.

In the conditions determined by statute suffrage shall be universal, equal and secret. It may be direct or indirect.

All Comorians of either sex who are in possession of their civil and political rights may vote as provided for by statute.

Comorian nationality may be acquired, kept and lost according to statute. No one who is Comorian by birth may be deprived of his nationality.

Political parties and groups shall contribute to the exercise of suffrage, as well as to civic and political education of the people. They shall be formed and carry on their activities freely, in accordance with Union legislation. They shall respect national unity, sovereignty and the inviolability of the borders of the Comoros as internationally recognized, as well as the principles of democracy.

Respecting the unity of the Union and the inviolability of its borders as internationally recognized, each island shall administer and manage its affairs freely.

Each island shall freely establish its status law while respecting the Constitution of the Union.

Comorans shall have the same rights, liberties and duties in each part of the Union.

No authority may adopt measures which either directly or indirectly would restrict the free movement and the freedom of residence of persons or the free circulation of goods in any part of the territory of the Union.

Any secession or attempt at secession of one or several autonomous islands shall be prohibited.

Each act which infringes the territorial integrity or national unity shall be considered as secession.

Each act or measure which is likely to infringe the unity of the Republic or to endanger the integrity of the national territory taken by an authority of an autonomous island or the Union shall be null and void. Judicial prosecutions notwithstanding, the nullity shall be declared by the Constitutional Court upon request by the President of the Union, by the President of the Assembly of the Union, by five Members of the Assembly of the Union, or by each citizen.

In the autonomous islands the executive and deliberative functions shall be exercised by different organs.

The executive function shall be exercised by a Governor assisted by Commissioners.

The Governor shall be elected by direct universal suffrage under a system of majority voting in two rounds for a term of five years, renewable once. In the case of resignation or permanent incapacity occurring within nine-hundred days after the start of his term and duly declared by the Constitutional Court upon request of the executive of the island the functions of Governor shall temporarily be exercised by the President of the Island Council. The election of a new Governor shall take place within forty-five days by indirect suffrage by the representatives of the Island Council and the mayors sitting as Congress.

The election shall take place by absolute majority of the members of the Congress. If this majority is not obtained on the first ballot, a second round of voting shall be held in which a simple majority of the members present shall suffice. The new Governor shall be elected for the rest of the term. During the period of forty-five days the Interim-Governor shall not appoint any new Commissioners.

If the vacancy or the permanent incapacity occurs later than nine-hundred days after the start of the Governor’s term, the interim shall be ensured by the President of the Island Council until the end of the term.

The Governor shall be the Head of the autonomous island.

He shall exercise by way of edict the powers which are assigned to him by the Constitution and the status law of the autonomous island. He shall ensure due respect for the Constitution and guarantee the implementation of the statutes and regulations of the Union in the island.

He shall make public the deliberations of the Island Council.

He shall be the Head of the relevant administration of the island.

The Governor shall be kept informed of the implementation of the measures of the Union in the island.

The Governor shall appoint the Commissioners whose number may not exceed six (6), and terminate their functions.

The deliberating function shall be exercised by an Island Council.

The Island Council shall regulate the matters of the autonomous island through its deliberations.

The Councilors of the Island shall be elected together with their substitutes (suppléants) by simple majority in single-member constituencies for a term of five years. An Act of the Union shall determine the number of the constituencies and the modalities of the vote.

The number of the Councilors shall not exceed:

• nine (9) for Mwali;

  eleven (11) for Maoré;

  nineteen (19) for N’dzuwani;

  twenty-three (23) for Ngazidja.

The office of Island Councilor does not give a right to remuneration. However, travel and attendance allowances may be granted to him by edict of the Governor within the limits fixed by statutory legislation.

The composition, organization and functioning of the Island Council as well as the modalities and terms for the election of its members shall be determined by statutory legislation.

The terms concerning the competences and the functioning of the office of Governor as well as the relations between the Governor’s office and the Island Council shall be fixed by statutory regulation.

The autonomous islands shall comprise territorial communities which shall freely govern themselves through elected executive and deliberating organs, in the procedures and conditions determined by the legislation of the Union.

Union law shall take precedence over the law of the islands; it shall be executed in the whole territory of the Comoros.

The following matters shall fall within the jurisdiction of the autonomous islands:

• administration of the local communities;

  organization of administrative, commercial or industrial entities and units of an island character other than State companies;

  police in the cities and in the rural areas;

  Fairs and markets;

  distribution of island grants and scholarships;

  road administration;

  administration of secondary roads;

  local planning with regard to the island territory;

  construction, furnishing, maintenance and management of facilities in preparatory, primary and secondary education as well as of their staff;

  local professional training at the elementary level;

  non-industrial fishing;

  agriculture and breeding, with the exception of breeding schemes and research activities;

  construction, furnishing, maintenance and management of basic healthcare facilities and of their staff.

Matters other than those referred to in the preceding paragraph shall fall within the jurisdiction of the Union.

The autonomous islands shall generate their own revenues for the exercise of their powers by levying fees and internal taxes on goods and services in accordance with the Finance Act.

Peace Treaties, Trade agreements, treaties or agreements relating to international organization, those committing the finances of the State, those modifying provisions which are the preserve of statute law, those relating to the status of persons, and those involving the ceding, exchanging or acquiring of territory, may be ratified or approved only by an Act of Parliament.

They shall not take effect until such ratification or approval has been secured.

If the Constitutional Court, upon referral by the President of the Union, by the President of the Assembly of the Union or by the Heads of the island executives has held that an international undertaking contains a clause contrary to the Constitution, authorization to ratify or approve the international undertaking involved may be given only after amending the Constitution.

Treaties or agreements duly ratified or approved shall, upon publication, prevail over Acts of the Union or the islands, subject, with respect to each agreement or treaty, to its application by the other party.

The islands shall enjoy financial autonomy.

They shall freely enact and execute their budgets in accordance with the principles applicable to the management of public finances.

An Institutional Act shall determine the respective share of the revenues to which the Union and the islands shall be entitled. The division of revenues shall be implemented within the framework of the annual Finance Act of the Union.

Subjects to the conditions defined by the Institutional Act the islands may create for the benefit of their budgets taxes and levies not provided for by the law of the Union.

The Union shall distribute external aid and investments equitably among the islands, while upholding the principles of solidarity and complementarity which govern their relations.

In addition to the matters assigned to them by other articles of the Constitution, Union statutes shall determine the rules concerning:

• civic rights and the fundamental guarantees granted to citizens for the exercise of their civil liberties; the obligations imposed upon the person and property of citizens;

  the law governing associations and political parties and the status of the opposition;

  nationality, the status and capacity of persons, family law, inheritance and gifts;

  the determination of serious crimes and other major offences and the penalties they carry; criminal procedure; amnesty; the setting up of new categories of courts;

  Duty to pay taxes

  the base, rates and methods of collection of all types of taxes; the issuing of currency.

Statutes shall also determine the rules governing:

• the administration of customs services;

  the management of State lands and of the land registry;

  the management of publicly funded companies;

  Right to own property

  systems of ownership, property rights and civil and commercial obligations;

  Electoral districts

  the system for electing Members of the Assembly of the Union;

  the setting up of categories of public legal entities;

  Duty to serve in the military

  the status of civil servants and members of the Armed Forces and the fundamental guarantees granted to them;

  nationalization of companies and the transfer of ownership of companies from the public to the private sector;

  Protection from expropriation

  expropriations in the public interest.

Statutes shall lay down the basic principles of:

• the general organization of defense and national security;

  the general organization of the administrative, social and financial investigation authorities;

  education and national public diploma;

  information and the new information technologies.

Matters other than those coming under the scope of statute law shall be matters for regulation.

The Assembly of the Union may call one or several Ministers or other members of the Government to account by addressing a petition to the President of the Union. Such a petition shall not be admissible unless it is signed by at least one third of the members of the Assembly of the Union.

Voting may not take place within forty-eight hours after the petition has been tabled. Solely votes cast in favor of the petition shall be counted and the latter can be adopted only by a majority of two thirds of the Members of the Assembly of the Union.

The Assembly of the Union shall not vote on more than two petitions per year, and no petition shall be tabled in the course of an extraordinary session.

The President is under an obligation to terminate the functions of the Minister or Ministers or other members of the Government targeted by the petition. He shall not re-appoint them to ministerial functions in the six months following their dismissal.

Subject to the Constitution and within the limits of their respective powers, the Union and the autonomous islands and the autonomous islands among themselves may conclude accords of a social, economic or financial character.

Within the limits of their respective powers and subject to the Constitution of the Union of the Comoros and the international undertakings of the Union, the autonomous islands may establish and maintain cooperation with foreign local communities and non-governmental bodies.

No convention under the present Article may be concluded between an autonomous island and a foreign State or an intergovernmental international organization unless it forms part of a framework agreement between the Union of the Comoros and that foreign State or intergovernmental international organization.

The Constitutional Court shall rule on the constitutionality of the statutes of the Union and the islands. It shall monitor the proper conduct of the electoral operations in the islands as well as at Union level, including referendums; it shall rule on electoral disputes. Finally, it shall guarantee the fundamental rights of the individual and public liberties.

The Constitutional Court shall guarantee the distribution of powers between the Union and the islands. It shall be competent to rule on the conflicts of jurisdiction between two or several institutions of the Union, between the Union and the islands, and among the islands themselves.

Every citizen may request a ruling a ruling of the Constitutional Court on the constitutionality of statutes, either directly or by way of objecting to the application of an allegedly unconstitutional statute before a court of the Union or of an island in a case involving him. The court shall stay the proceedings until the Constitutional Court has given its ruling, which it shall do within thirty days.

The President of the Union, the Vice Presidents of the Union, the President of the Assembly of the Union, and the heads of the island executives shall each appoint one member to the Constitutional Court.

The members of the Constitutional Court shall be persons of great morality and honesty and shall have recognized standing in legal, administrative, economic or social matters. They must be able to point to a professional experience of at least fifteen years. They shall be appointed for a renewable six-year term.

The President of the Constitutional Court shall be designated by his peers for a term of six years, renewable once.

The members of the Constitutional Court shall be irremovable from office. They may not be prosecuted or arrested without authorization of the Court, except in the case of committing a crime or offense flagrante delicto.

The functions of a member of the Constitutional Court shall be incompatible with the membership in the institutions of the Union or the islands, as well as with any public employment or professional activity.

An Institutional Act shall determine the rules governing the organization and the functioning of the Constitutional Court, the procedure to be followed before it, especially the conditions, modalities and time limits for a referral to the Court, as well as the status of and the immunities and disciplinary rules applicable to its members.

A provision which has been declared unconstitutional shall be void and shall cease to apply.

The decisions of the Constitutional Court shall not be subject to appeal. They shall be binding on all public authorities and courts in the territory of the Union.

Consultative bodies may be established under the authority of the Presidency of the Union.

The consultative bodies, including the Council of Ulemas and the Economic and Social Council, shall assist the Government of the Union and the heads of the island executives in the elaboration of decisions affecting the religious, economic and social life of the country.

A Union statute shall determine the modalities of consultation and of functioning of these bodies.

The President of the Union and a minimum of one third of the Members of the Assembly of the Union shall both have the right to initiate amendments to the Constitution.

To be adopted, a Government or a Private Member’s Bill to amend the Constitution must be approved by two thirds of the total membership of the Assembly of the Union as well as by two thirds of the total membership of the Island Councils, or by referendum.

No amendment procedure shall be initiated or continued where the integrity of the national territory, the inviolability of its internationally recognized borders or the autonomy of its islands is placed in jeopardy.

The institutions of the Union provided for in the present Constitution shall be established within a period not exceeding twelve months starting with the adoption of the present Constitution.

The institutions of Maoré shall be established within a period not exceeding six months, starting on the day on which the circumstances which prevent the island from rejoining the Union of the Comoros cease to exist.

The present Constitution shall be revised in order to draw the institutional consequences of the return of Maoré to the Union of the Islands of Comoros.

The present Constitution shall be adopted by referendum.

The election of the President of the Union shall take place at the same time as the election of the Governors.