Opinion: ‘Juba Peace Agreement is ink on paper’ as Sudan junta dismisses Sovereignty Council members

A growing chorus of opposition has condemned the decisions by Lt Gen Abdelfattah El Burhan, president of the Sovereignty Council and commander of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), to dismiss Sovereignty Council members El Hadi Idris and El Taher Hajar. Lawyer and prominent member of Sudan’s Popular Congress Party (PCP), Kamal Omar described the decisions as “a flagrant violation of the Juba Peace Agreement”.

He says in an interview with Radio Dabanga that “the Juba Peace Agreement has expired and has become ink on paper,” and that “the participants in the war have forgotten the agreement and engaged in the war [so that] the Juba Agreement has ended as political and constitutional content”.

Omar asserts that since the October 25 2021 coup, “El Burhan has been acting as a military commander who has no constitutional legitimacy,” and described the appointments made after the coup as “contrary to the constitution, pointing to a vacuum in constitutional oversight and the Constitutional Court with no legislative authority to monitor the behaviour of executives”.

He stressed the effective absence of a Sovereignty Council according to the text of the 2019 constitutional document to implement self-control over the actions of the speaker of the council.

He pointed out that the constitutional legitimacy granted to the President of the Sovereignty Council according to the constitutional document has ended, indicating that “the regime that now runs the country is a military regime that does not have any institutions, but rather possesses the power of the gun, under which the Sovereignty Council almost exempted civilians,” he laments.