On February 15, 2026, the fiction of a unified Libyan state officially dissolved, not with the roar of artillery, but with the silent fall of a gavel in a Benghazi courtroom. The Supreme Constitutional Court’s ruling to strip Abdullah Abu Raziza—the Tripoli-based head of the Supreme Court—of his legitimacy is the definitive institutional decapitation of the Libyan legal system. While the international community remains fixated on the “February 17 Revolution” anniversaries and the glittering drone shows in Tripoli’s Martyrs’ Square, the bedrock of the state has been hollowed out. Libya is no longer a country with two governments; it is a territory with two incompatible legal realities.

For over a decade, the United Nations and Western diplomats have treated Libya as a patient in rehabilitation, perpetually “one structured dialogue” away from recovery. This latest ruling proves that the patient has already undergone an unannounced amputation. By creating a judicial civil war, the Libyan political class has ensured that no national election can ever be legally certified. Lawfare has replaced warfare as the primary tool of institutional paralysis, and the result is a permanent state of “administrative processing” where the country is stuck in a loop that leads nowhere.

The Judicial Guillotine and the “Red Line”

The Benghazi-based court’s decision was clinical. By declaring the appointment of Abu Raziza unconstitutional and nullifying........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)