The Tunisian Council of Ministers approved today, Wednesday, a draft law regarding the amendment of Article 411 of the Commercial Code, which will be presented as soon as possible to the Parliament. This draft law is part of a review of legislation aimed at improving the business environment and aligning criminal policy with its specificities by adopting a phased approach to amending the "check" transaction system, considering its economic importance and its financial repercussions.
The draft law specifically includes:
- Reviewing prison and financial penalties towards mitigation.
- Stipulating the possibility of replacing prison sentences with alternative penalties.
- Criminalizing the receipt of checks as a guarantee.
- Mandating that penalties imposed be included in the same session.
- Reviewing prison sentences issued by different courts.
- Expanding the scope of settlement procedures to include, in addition to the trial and prosecution stages, the stage of executing the penalty.
In his opening of the Council of Ministers meeting in Kasbah, Prime Minister Ahmed Hachani praised the efforts made by all stakeholders to improve economic indicators. Hachani noted that the Tunisian economy has faced many difficulties in recent years since 2020.
On Wednesday, the Tunisian government announced in a statement that the total number of inmates imprisoned for issuing "bad checks" has reached 496, of whom 292 are convicted and 204 are detained. This information is based on statistics recorded by the Ministry of Justice up to April 2024. According to the government, it was found that the number of cases involving the inmates in issues of issuing "bad checks" reached 11,265 cases, meaning that 496 inmates issued 11,265 checks, considering that each check constitutes a case file.
