Jurist and Ebuteli fellow Michel Nonga successfully defended his Master's thesis in domestic public law at the University of Kinshasa. Focused on the interpretive freedom of the Congolese Constitutional Court, his work was awarded the grade “Très bien” (distinction).
Michel Nonga defended his Master's thesis in legal, political and administrative sciences, specialising in domestic public law, before a jury of the University of Kinshasa made up of Professor Félicien Kalala, chair of the jury, and Professors Laurent Onyemba and Ndombi. After deliberation, the jury awarded him the grade “Très bien” (distinction).
His research addresses a question at the heart of Congolese legal debate: the interpretive freedom of the Constitutional Court. The young jurist notes that the high court has developed powers and review techniques that reveal a broad freedom of interpretation. In particular, it raises grounds of its own motion, modulates the effects of its judgments over time and issues reservations of interpretation. Since 2022, it has even expressly claimed this freedom, which he describes as a “formidable weapon” (R. Const. 1816).
Interpretive freedom without regulatory mechanisms
The whole question is whether this freedom comes with regulatory mechanisms. According to Michel Nonga, however, no text precisely regulates constitutional interpretation. He therefore looked for ways of framing it in the rule of precedent, which does not operate in Congolese law, and in the obligation to rule in a special formation, which exists before the Council of State and the Court of Cassation.
While he observes that the Court imposes certain techniques of restraint on itself, such as refusing voluntary interventions or splitting the subject matter of a dispute, he considers that these do not amount to genuine regulation. He argues that the content of interpretive freedom, the principles that govern it and the cases in which it may be used should be defined, taking legal certainty into account, in order to avoid “the risk of overstepping the judicial function”.
A fellow of the 5th cohort of the Ebuteli Fellowship programme, Michel Nonga also works as a legal assistant at Onyemba Consulting and as a parliamentary aide in charge of legal matters.