National Convention abolishes its constitutional commissions

Lazia, 30 August 2025 — The National Convention of 2019 has abolished the hierarchy of commissions that formed much of its deliberative machinery, in the first stage of a programme to consolidate government bodies.

The reform is intended to reduce duplication of functions and to strengthen the role of permanent ministries in areas previously overseen by committees of the National Convention.

Four bodies have been abolished outright: the Constitutional Commission of Law, the Commission of Law on Civil Law, the Commission of Statute on Jurisprudence and Civil Rights, and the Commission of Statute on Government Procedure and Relations of State. Each had served as a specialised drafting or advisory organ, but their overlapping responsibilities were often criticised as a source of procedural delay.

Two commissions were transferred rather than abolished. The National Convention of 2019 Advisory Legal Commission has been merged into the Council of State, which resumes its advisory role to government as a whole, while the Commission of Statute on National and Cultural Development moves to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport and Science, preserving its expertise under a ministry rather than the National Convention.

The changes mark a shift away from the original extraconstitutional model towards one in which permanent ministries and established state institutions take precedence. What began in 2019 as an ambitious drafting body intended to re-found the Confederation had by stages become a vehicle for day-to-day governance; these reforms begin its contraction into the ordinary structures of the state.

Observers described the measure as a necessary rationalisation of state functions, though some noted that it also reduces the autonomy of the National Convention.

Officials close to the process said the reforms were part of a larger sequence of changes that would extend into the ministerial and administrative spheres in the months to come.