TUNIS // In Ali Khlifi's briefcase are copies of six company cheques made out to Imad Trabelsi, a nephew by marriage of Tunisia's ousted president.
Mr Khlifi represents a businessman allegedly targeted for extortion by Mr Trabelsi. In many countries, the course of action would be obvious: pursue the matter through the courts.
The problem is that while the former president Zine el Abidine Ben Ali is gone, the institutions he built during 23 years in power are still intact. Like other nations emerging from authoritarian rule, Tunisia has a legal system that served the interests of Mr Ben Ali and his ruling clique.
Last Friday Mr Khlifi sought help from a state commission examining claims of corruption linked to Mr Ben Ali's regime, bringing the cheques as evidence.
"I'm trying the commission because the courts aren't clean yet," said Mr Khlifi. "There are still judges there who put thousands of Tunisians in jail for political reasons."
Under Mr Ben Ali's rule, courts were often used to facilitate corruption and smother dissent. The commission set up after his removal in January is part of government efforts to undo those wrongs.
However, democratic transition will require a judicial system able to function independently.
The transition will begin with the removal of officials implicated in the crimes of the fallen regime, said Habib Nassar, the acting director for the MENA region at the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), a New York-based non-profit organisation that advises countries moving from dictatorship to democracy.
"This can be a sensitive process. You must be sure that you don't end up with hasty measures just to appease protesters or elements of the political class," Mr Nassar said.
Tunisia's interim government has faced pressure from demonstrators to purge politics of Mr Ben Ali's former allies.
In February, the interior ministry suspended his party, the Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD).
Later that month, anti-government protests in Tunis spilled into clashes with police that left three dead and more than 100 injured.
The violence prompted the swift resignation of the interim prime minister, Mohamed Ghannouchi, a former Ben Ali stalwart and a favourite target of protesters.
Last month, a Tunis court dissolved the RCD. Meanwhile, the government has hunted down Mr Ben Ali's family and associates.
Authorities said in January that 33 of his relatives had been arrested. International warrants have been issued for others.
The commission on corruption operates at the behest of the Tunisian government, and has the power to request documents and interview people, said its president, Abdelfattah Amor, a former president of the United Nations Human Rights Committee.
However, cases are ultimately decided by the courts. The commission has seized all documents from Mr Ben Ali's office and interviewed about 30 senior officials, Mr Amor said. It has examined 862 claims so far, with 441 being decided in court.
Mr Amor said this work, and the continuing investigation of a claims backlog totalling nearly 5,000 cases, is meant to send a message: "That no one can engage in corruption or embezzlement with impunity."
Last month the interim president, Fouad Embazza, ordered the state to seize assets held by Mr Ben Ali, his wife Leila Trabelsi and 112 members of their extended family and associates.
The move has the backing of some in the legal field, who argue that urgent measures are needed to prevent members of the old regime from liquidating possibly ill-gotten gains for transfer abroad.
"If we try to go case by case with the Ben Ali family, it will take time," said Kalthoum Kennou, a judge in Tunis and the secretary general of the Association of Tunisian Magistrates. "Courts will decide in the end, so I don't consider it interference."
For Mrs Kennou, the need for such emergency measures underlines the flawed nature of Tunisia's justice system.
"Magistrates are not playing the role they should," she said. "And the judiciary is still under the control of the justice ministry. It was through the justice system that the Ben Ali and Trabelsi families got hold of the country's wealth."
Members of Mr Ben Ali's family muscled their way into most major business deals and wrestled hold of companies spanning the entire economy, according to US diplomatic cables published last year by Wikileaks.
In many cases, crooked deals were formalised by courts controlled by the regime, while political dissidents were jailed and fined on spurious charges.
Mrs Kennou said Mr Ben Ali himself appointed the justice minister and top magistrates, who relayed his will down through the judicial structure.
Fear of sudden transfer, denial of promotion or other punishments kept many judges in line.
But some judges resisted the regime's influence. Among them was Mrs Kennou, who in 2005 was among leaders of the Association of Tunisian Magistrates transferred from Tunis by the justice ministry in a bid to weaken the group.
However, rotten wood remains in place within the framework of justice, Mrs Kennou said, citing the presence of pro-Ben Ali judges.
"These judges don't have an interest in an independent judiciary because they know that their files would be the first opened," she said.
Mrs Kennou wants such judges barred from key posts, and hopes that a new constitution - expected after legislative elections slated for July - will reduce the justice ministry's role to administering courthouses.
For democracy to take root, it is essential that such reforms "take into account due process, procedural fairness and the rights of defendants", said Mr Nassar, of the ICTJ.
"In the long term, if you don't have a process based on the rule of law, you won't restore trust in state institutions."
jthorne@thenational.ae