The Constitutional Court of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has given its approval on Tuesday to a law approved by both chambers of the Congolese Parliament that clears the way for President Félix Tshisekedi to run for a third term in the African country.
During a public hearing, the highest judicial authority in the country concluded that the content of the norm, supported by both the National Assembly and the Senate, is in accordance with the Constitution, although it has made certain "reservations" about some of its articles.
"Exercising its normative power, the court will order that the law be published in the Official Bulletin with this ruling as an annex, so that the reservations made can be taken into account in its application," it declared, according to the Congolese news portal Actualité.
At the beginning of June, the National Assembly gave the green light to a law on the organization of referendums, considered essential for any constitutional reform seeking to alter the current limit of two terms for the head of state. Its processing triggered intense protests against the Government, led by the so-called Article 64 Coalition.
The response of the security forces to these mobilizations, in which at least one person died and around 40 were injured, was condemned by the spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Seif Magango, in the middle of that same month.
Tshisekedi, in power since 2019, had already raised in 2024 the option of reforming the Constitution and announced his intention to create a commission of experts to study it, which led the opposition to accuse him of preparing changes aimed at allowing him to run for election again.