When Julien Paluku tries to legitimise the unacceptable through a false theocratic analogy

Opinion by Maître Jean-Paul Paluku Ngahangondi

The argument put forward by Julien Paluku Kaghongya, who invokes the reform of the Vatican’s fundamental law in an attempt to justify revising the Constitution of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a deeply misleading exercise. It rests on a false analogy that withstands no serious analysis of constitutional law.

To compare an absolute theocratic monarchy, in which the Sovereign Pontiff concentrates power under a sui generis regime, with a democratic Republic founded on popular sovereignty, the separation of powers, the rule of law and the alternation of political power, is to deliberately conflate two incompatible institutional realities.

At the Vatican, adaptations to the fundamental law have never sought to call into question the nature of the regime, nor to allow a leader to circumvent democratic limits. To claim that they constitute a precedent legitimising a change to the Congolese Constitution is to divert comparative law from its purpose and to instrumentalise legal references in order to sway public opinion.

Such an approach is dangerous. It contributes to normalising constitutional manipulation and risks weakening the foundations of the rule of law in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. When a political leader uses manifestly inappropriate comparisons to defend a project touching the republican pact, he does not enrich democratic debate; he sows confusion and erodes citizens’ trust in institutions.

The Constitution of the Democratic Republic of the Congo cannot be interpreted or reformed by means of artificial comparisons with a state whose legal nature, institutions and political legitimacy are radically different. Constitutional questions demand rigour, intellectual honesty and profound respect for the sovereignty of the Congolese people.

The Congolese people deserve a debate grounded in truth, law and democratic principles — not in fallacious reasoning designed to manufacture an illusion of legitimacy.