in households headed by women as against 50.6% among persons living in households managed by men. The marital status of the head of the household makes a difference. 92. Households headed by older persons who are more than 60 years, often inactive or retired, are more affected by poverty; persons of the third age (more than 60 years) accounted for 38.7% of the total number of poor people at the national level. II. CONSTITUTIONAL AND POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS 93. Recognized as an exemplary country in the area of democracy following two changeovers of political power conducted under peaceful and stable circumstances in 2000 and 2012, Senegal must, nevertheless, make efforts to create and consolidate a favourable environment for political, economic, cultural and social liberalism. 94. The Constitution confers a central role on the President of the Republic for the determination and implementation of the country’s economic policy, and at the same time, it establishes separation of executive, legislative and judicial powers. This was the causal factor of glitches which strongly affected the current governance system of the country. 95. Thus, it is necessary to keep watch over the effective separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary in order to strengthen the democratic governance which is the fundamental bedrock of respect for individual rights under the rule of law. This system guarantees equal access by accused persons to all services and contributes to the impartiality and efficiency of national human rights protection mechanisms, the establishment of an efficient legislative framework, consolidation of democratic institutions and control by the citizenry. 96. The legislative power of the Senegalese Parliament, which until quite recently was a bicameral18 legislature, is exercised solely by the National Assembly with a renewable plural national representation, of which women comprise 43.3 per cent. After several legislatures, Parliament is still confronted with the issue of weak capacity which does not allow it to exercise budgetary control and monitoring of public policy impacts, quite apart from the numerous forms of support which have been provided to its members as part of the implementation of the national good governance programme. 97. In its operationalization, the justice system is characterized by complex and bureaucratic procedures, thus, limiting its effectiveness, in spite of recent reforms carried out in the sector, which has also benefitted greatly from the gains of recent good governance programmes. 18 The Senate was abolished during the Constitutional reform of 19 September 2012. 22