President of Tunisia may in exceptional circumstances put certain draft laws to a referendum. Article 87 specifies that the president enjoys legal immunity while in office. Since the promulgation of a republican constitution in June 1959, three years after gaining independence from France, Tunisia has had just three directly elected presidents. The first president was Habib Bourguiba, who became the country's first president after the proclamation of a republic in 1957; he had been the country's de facto leader as prime minister since independence in 1956. He was formally elected to the post in 1959, and was proclaimed president for life in 1975.
Habib Bourguiba was a Women's rights defender, Bourguiba based this law on his ideas, emancipating women, despite the then-conservative public opinion. Bourguiba understood the opposition he would face but decided to act, before even building the Republic. Nevertheless, he was supported by some religious personalities, such as Mohamed Fadhel Ben Achour, who defended Bourguiba's reform, stating that the CPS are possible interpretations of Islam. However, others did not share these views and said that the CPS was violating Islamic norms. The Personal Status Code would, then, constitute the fundamental legacy of Habib Bourguiba, to the point of becoming a sort of consensus