In Chad, the magistrates’ union and the autonomous unions have announced an indefinite strike that will take effect from Monday 26 September. After two weeks of unsuccessful strike action, they have moved up a gear to demand an increase in their salaries and the provision of weapons to ensure their own security.
A strike movement that paralyzes all jurisdictions in Chad. The magistrates are protesting against the Chadian government’s silence regarding their demands. They are requesting, among other things, an increase in allowances, an end to the illegal suspension of the salaries of some magistrates and the provision of handguns. Considered as a third power, the actors of justice would like to be treated as such. Thus the walkout movement that takes effect this Monday, is not at its first episode. For two weeks, they have been on strike to recall the promises of the president of the transition.
“After two weeks of work suspension, we remain open to any possible appeal from the government, because it is inadmissible that the doors of the courts and tribunals are closed for reasons as simple as that,” Bruno Taoka, president of the Autonomous Union of Magistrates of Chad (Syamat) told RFI.
Last March and April, Chadian magistrates had already observed a prolonged strike, denouncing the insecurity they permanently face in the sector. On April 8, 2022, the president of the transition, granted an audience to the leaders of the two orders of unions. General Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, as a good father of the nation, promised to deploy a sufficient number of security agents in all the jurisdictions of the country and to take charge of them, to provide all magistrates with pistols, to hand over to justice all the perpetrators of acts of aggression against magistrates, as well as to apply all the privileges and benefits granted to magistrates.
