Name of the institution : Council of State

President :
Mr. Mohamed SONKO

Address :
Immeuble Ex. USB
Rue Béranger Ferraud
Angle rue Ramez Bourgi
BP 3162 - Dakar SÉNÉGAL

Phone number :
(221) 823.81.79 (President)
(221) 822.47.86 (Court)
(221) 822.47.04 (Mrs Habibatou GUEYE, Secretary General)

Fax :
(221) 822.14.48

Composition and structure

Number of members :
Permanent members : 12 including the President, the President of section, the councillors and magistrates.
Temporary members : 20 councillors of State in extraordinary mission, appointed for a renewable term of one year.

Recruitment procedures and incompatibilities :
The members of the Council of State are recruited amongst the magistrates of the courts and tribunals, and appointed , upon proposal of the Minister of Justice, by decree of the President of the Republic, pursuant to the requirements set out by the organic law concerning magistrates. They are irremovable. The temporary members of the council of State (councillors of State in extraordinary mission), whose number may not exceed 20, are qualified personnalities in the various areas of national activity. They are designated by decree for a term of one year which may be renewed as often as necessary. These councillors sit in the general consultative assembly.
The functions of permanent member of the Council of State are incompatible with any public or private activity, and with any electorale mandate.

Internal organization :
The President of the Council of State is responsible for the administration, the discipline and the financial management. He is assisted in his task by the Board of the Council, chaired by himself and which comprises : the presidents of section ; a secretary general, chosen amongst the councillors of State and appointed by a presidential decree ; a secretary's office of the Council which is also the office of the clerk and which is supervised by the chief clerk, appointed by decree.

The President may call all the members to meet in an internal assembly. He chairs, if he wishes so, every panel of judgment of the Council.

The panels of the council of State are the followings :
- all sections joint : chaired by the President of the Council of State, it comprises the presidents of section and all the councillors.
- Sections : the first section, made up of a president and two councillors of State, is comptent to hear all actions ultra vires and all litigations concerning elections (municipalities and rural councils) ; the second section (section of accounts) is competent to judge all the accounts of public book-keepers. It is composed of three members : a president and two councillors.

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Court functions

Jurisdiction :
Actions ultra vires : the council of State is judge in first and last instance ; it controls the admininstrative acts and the decisions of the admininstration in regard of the citizens. The judge may annul the impugned act.
Litigations concerning the inscription on the electoral roll and the elections for the municipal and rural councils : the Council of State is judge of appeal of the judgments rendered in that matter by the discrict courts. The judge has the power to reverse.

Action for cassation and revision : the Council of State, all sections joint, hears the actions for cassation against rulings of the Court of budgetary discipline. It is also comptent to hear the actions for cassation against the rulings in last instance of admininstrative organisms with jurisdictional character.
Assistance, suprevision and judicial control in matters of public accounting : the Council of State assists the President of the Republic, the Government and the National Assembly in the control of the execution of the budget. Therefore, the Council supervises the accounts of public book-keepers and the financial management of corporations and entities of the semi-public sector. It is assisted in this task by councillors-reporters designated amongst the magistrates of the section or/and by reporters coming either from the Commission of verification of public accounts and corporations, or from the Court of budgetary discipline.

The section takes successively several decisions : a provisional ruling, notified to the book-keeper with, eventually, some observations and injunctions ; than, after a complete investigation, a definite ruling. The president of the section of accounts applies to the president of the National Assembly and the ministers concerned to transmit them the Council's observations on their financial management, to give rise to the necessary rectifications, and eventually to exercise a disciplinary action against the responsible civil servants.

By a statement of conformity, the section asserts the general concordance between the writings of the civil servants and those of the book-keepers.

In matters of public book-keeping, the Council of State has to establish, for the President of the Republic, a yearly public report in which it presents the most important irregularities and eventually proposes some reforms.

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Advisory functions

The general consultative assembly of the Council of State :
- gives a motivated advice to the Government on the bills and drafts of decree submitted to it by the Prime minister ;
- takes into account not only the constitutionality or legality of the provisions submitted for consultation, but also their appropriateness to achieve the purposes definded by government ;
- gives its advice to the President of the Republic or to the Prime mininster every time when its consultation is required by a statute or a by-law or whenever these authorities wish to submit an admininstrative problem to it ;
- gives its advice on parliamentarians' bills when it is seized by the President of the National Assembly, after the examination of the bill by the competent standing committee.

Miscellaneous remarks

Legislature has introduced two innovations in comparison to the legal texts concerning the former Supreme Court which has now disappeared :
- Legislature has introduced in the constitution and in the statutes concerning the Council of State the possibility for a party to a trial to raize the exception of inconstitutionality of a statute, in order to oblige the Council of State to refer this question to the Constitutional Council ;
- Art. 33 of the organic law on the Council of State.

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