While political scientists continue to celebrate Tunisia’s advances towards a liberal democracy since the 2011 Revolution, ambiguities around vague legal contours and enduring repressive policing practices have occupied more critical observers. Despite institutional reforms towards political liberalization, including two rounds of free elections (2011 and 2014) and the ratification of a new Constitution (2014), the protection of citizen’s liberties and their rights appears asymmetric. The uneven application of due process perhaps reveals lingering authoritarian practices, an uncertain commitment to liberal democracy, or a pre-occupation with the re-securitization of the state, despite pervasive public commitments by nearly all political actors to liberty and democracy. An under-reformed judicial system coupled with the re-entry of former RCD regime members into Tunisia’s new government, suggests one possible answer. Yet, debates around the judiciary in Tunisia have to consider the role of the judiciary in Tunisia’s dictatorial past. As analysts previously treated Ben Ali’s regime as a repressive police state protected by an extensive internal security apparatus, little work has been produced on the systematic cooptation and hollowing of the country’s judiciary during that period. The tentacles of Ben Ali’s legal regime continue to reach into contemporary Tunisian politics and everyday life. As a result, since 2011, citizens are still arrested and tried on arbitrary charges, such as public order disturbance and defamation, disregarding Constitutional protections. To demonstrate the possible effects of Ben Ali’s lingering legal apparatus on Tunisia’s political transition and highlight the uneven application of protective measures, this paper will examine cases of arbitrary arrests, detention and imprisonments since 2011, encompassing the three diverse governments since the fall of Ben Ali. In line with the theme of this panel, this paper does not treat Tunisia’s judiciary as an object of study, but rather takes the dictatorial legacy as a point of departure and juxtaposes debates around judicial independence and the meaning of rule of law to instances when the law has been unevenly applied.