In a ruling delivered on Thursday, decision n°6/C/2026, Senegal’s Constitutional Court declared Constitutional Law n°18/2026 to be contrary to the Constitution, according to Financial Afrik. The body is formally known as the Constitutional Council, though it is widely described in reporting as Senegal’s Constitutional Court, and it acted after Faye urgently referred the legislation for review.
The bill had been adopted by the National Assembly on 29 June, passed comfortably by Pastef, the ruling party that controls 130 of the chamber’s 165 seats. It would have barred a sitting president from leading a political party or coalition, a clause widely seen as targeting Faye, who remains a Pastef member even as his relationship with Sonko has broken down.
Beyond the party leadership clause, the legislation carried sweeping structural changes. It expanded parliament’s investigative powers and required the government to disclose agreements on natural resource exploitation to lawmakers. It also proposed replacing the Constitutional Council with a nine member court, up from the current seven, and imposed stricter limits on the president’s ability to dissolve the National Assembly.
The government objected that the reform had been rushed through without consulting political stakeholders, and Faye had already signalled his intention to put the matter before voters in a referendum rather than let it pass through parliament alone, Africanews reported. That referendum plan is now shelved after Senegal’s Constitutional Court sided with the presidency instead.
Sonko, who was dismissed as prime minister in May, now presides over the National Assembly that approved the bill. He also leads Pastef, the same party to which Faye belongs, a dynamic that has turned a policy dispute into a personal contest for influence. Faye has said he intends to form his own political party in the coming weeks, a move likely to split the Pastef coalition ahead of local elections due in 2027.
The bill’s passage through parliament was not without resistance. Opposition lawmakers staged a walkout after a colleague was forcibly removed from the podium during a protest against the vote, according to West Africa Weekly. Outside the chamber, police fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators who had gathered under the slogan “Hands off my Constitution,” and several opposition figures were detained.
The decision from Senegal’s Constitutional Court effectively preserves the existing balance of power between the presidency and parliament, at least for now. It also removes, for the moment, the referendum that Faye had floated as an alternative route to settling the standoff.
The episode reflects a deeper fracture within Senegal’s governing alliance. Faye and Sonko came to power together in 2024 on a promise of sweeping reform, but their partnership has unravelled over several disagreements, including how to manage Senegal’s public debt. Their rivalry is expected to shape Senegalese politics well beyond this ruling, with the 2027 local elections likely to offer the first real test of which camp commands greater public support.
Legal analysts in Dakar note that the involvement of Senegal’s Constitutional Court in a dispute between the executive and the legislature is itself unusual, since the institution rarely intervenes so directly in matters of party politics. Its ruling this week nonetheless sets a precedent for how future disputes between the presidency and parliament might be resolved.
For now, Senegal’s Constitutional Court has settled the immediate legal question, though the political contest between Faye and Sonko shows little sign of cooling.
