Addis Ababa — The African leaders approved on Monday at the second day of the 20th African Union (AU) Summit held in Addis Ababa, President Moncef Marzouki's proposal to create an International Constitutional Court and an African Institute of Statistics.

Tunisia's offer to host the Institute's headquarters was also approved by the AU countries.

President Marzouki pointed out that the Tunisian initiative regarding the Court is aimed to "create an authority of judiciary and consultative nature whose mission is to see to it that all countries respect laws and principles agreed upon by Nations, notably, the principle of founding legitimacy on people's will and organise periodic free and transparent elections."

The Tunisian initiative, he also explained, is based on the principle of fair geographic and cultural representation that takes into account the various legal and constitutional systems in the Court's composition.

The creation of an International Constitutional Court is "an extention of the general approach adopted by the African Union and defined in its status and the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance (CADEG), ratified by Tunisia in the present Summit," Mr. Marzouki specified.