Kinshasa, October 2, 2026 — The national dialogue announced by President Félix Tshisekedi must function as a political mechanism for consultation and peacebuilding, not as a parallel institution, a lawyer at the Paris Bar has said. The remarks set out clear legal boundaries for a process meant to build compromise on peace, national cohesion, institutional reform and the functioning of the state.
A consultation mechanism, not an alternative parliament
Me Ben Touere, a lawyer at the Paris Bar, said the initiative should be understood strictly as a political framework for concertation and pacification. “The national dialogue announced by President Félix Tshisekedi must be conceived as a political mechanism for consultation and peacebuilding, not as a parallel institution,” he said in an interview. “It can help build compromises on peace, national cohesion, institutional reforms and the functioning of the state. On the other hand, it must not become a second Parliament, a parallel Government, a political court, or a de facto constituent assembly.”
No lasting legal effect without constitutional institutions
Touere, who holds a doctorate in public law and teaches at Sorbonne Paris Nord University, stressed that any political conclusions reached during the dialogue could only produce lasting legal effects once they are translated into action by the institutions that hold constitutional authority.
Who decides what after the dialogue
He laid out the sequence of competences that should govern the process:
- Legislative reform must go through Parliament.
- Public policy falls to the Government.
- Questions of constitutionality belong to the Constitutional Court.
- Any matter reserved for a direct decision by the people must be submitted to them through the forms provided for by law.
The proposed model therefore rests on a succession of steps: dialogue, consensus, intervention by the competent institutions, constitutional review and, where required or legally warranted, popular consultation.
Article 5 and the limits of national sovereignty
The analysis recalls that Article 5 of the Constitution enshrines the principle that national sovereignty belongs to the people, who exercise it directly through elections or referendum and indirectly through their representatives. “Neither the majority, nor the opposition, nor the participants in a dialogue can therefore claim national sovereignty for themselves,” Touere said. In the end, he argued, the process should aim to reform and consolidate the state through dialogue rather than create mechanisms capable of weakening it or sharing its prerogatives.