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on of revenue distribution and the management of the oil sector for future legislation with vague concepts like a just adila distribution the yemeni draft constitution offers even less in terms of guidelines than the hapless iraqi one from 2005 and much less than the relatively clear libyan constitutional draft that was released recently in sum the long winded yemeni draft constitution provides less clarity than the often contradictive iraqi constitution of 2005 and much less than the libyan constitutional draft with the military situation unfolding rapidly there is not much in this document that key players can look to in order to save the situation and bring it back to the political track quite the contrary it has been suggested that fury simply over the proposed administrative divisions and the six way federal scheme was a contributing factor behind the recent moves of the houthis against the yemeni president posted in federalism in the middle east comments off on the federalism dimension in yemen s draft constitution federalism and decentralization in libya s constitutional proposals posted by reidar visser on thursday 8 january 2015 14 48 followers of iraqi politics in the post 2003 period and the ongoing debate about federalism will likely see parallels to the way the concept of federalism has made its way into two other ongoing transitional processes in the middle eastern region those of yemen and libya whereas the political complexities of those transitions are too immense to be discussed by someone who does not specialize in the politics of those two countries constitutional drafts are emerging that make for some interesting surface comparison with the way federalism has been applied and continues to evolve in iraq as far as libya is concerned a patchwork draft constitution was made available in late december 2014 consisting of several sub documents on matters like administrative division organization of the judiciary transitional justice independent commissions finance and natural resources it can hardly be considered a complete constitutional draft also on some subjects there are two competing proposals again stressing the incomplete nature of the emerging charter but at least some hints about the prevailing trends inside the constitution writing committee are provided by the publication of these documents on administrative structure there are two papers reflecting the longstanding polarization in the arab world between competing visions for state structure there is one paper featuring decentralization and one paper using federalism as point of departure on closer inspection beyond terminological issues regions or aqalim versus governorates or muhafazat literally the same as in the iraqi constitution the differences between the two papers on state structure are less than one would think structurally there is of course some difference since the federalism position outlines a tripartite libya consisting of tripoli cyrenaica barqa in arabic and fezzan largely consisting of historical divisions that were also the chief organizing principle during libya s past existence as a federation in the 1950s and the 1960s conversely the paper advocating administrative decentralization within a unified state sets out a map of 32 governorates most of those units are corresponding to libya s administrative map of 2001 which had the same number of administrative units before some mergers ensued in subsequent years provision is made for a cabinet decision on exact administrative boundaries suggesting that at least some demarcation ambiguities remain but unlike the iraqi constitution a spanish inspired hybrid of established regions kurdistan and potential regions elsewhere which has also been suggested for yemen there is no suggestion that future federal regions in libya will emerge based on popular initiatives whichever version is adopted it is assumed that the administrative structure of libya will be decided top down by the constitutional committee itself as for the division of power between the centre and the subunits the two papers are in fact surprisingly similar unlike the iraqi constitution these proposals keep unspecified powers as the domain of the central government under the principle of residualism with only the powers of the administrative subunits being enumerated most local services are in both papers described as the powers of the subunits including in fields like agriculture health and local police however unlike the situation in iraq some of the weightiest spheres of government including oil and energy general security including the military and most education not higher education are implicitly kept for the central government to administer in so doing the libyan proposals at least offer greater clarity than the iraqi constitution in terms of demarcating responsibilities for key areas of government also unlike the iraqi constitution the question of dividing energy revenue is tackled head on with a specific formula distributing income with 30 to the governorates according to population 30 to the governorates on an equal basis 30 to the central government and 10 to the producing subunits the last arrangement echoes the iraqi petrodollar arrangement for producing governorates that has yet to achieve explicit constitutional confirmation whereas the two papers on state structure are positive steps as far as clarity regarding division of power is concerned evidence of lingering ambiguity can be found in the remaining papers meant to form the whole of libya s constitutional draft in these papers tensions relating to the federalism controversy continue to be manifest in the primary document regarding the relationship between legislature and executive power there seems to be a working assumption that a federal system will be adopted since a stipulation of equitable distribution between the three geographical regions is included as basis for the formation of the country s new senate no special federal formula is iterated for the first chamber or the executive whereas this could be normal also in a federal system other quotas of a non territorial nature are referred to ethnic minorities being specifically mentioned alongside the vaguer components sharait and mukawinnat similarly the paper on resource management is partially compatible with the federalism decentralization papers as regards revenue sharing but does not overlap entirely for example there is a stipulation that producing areas manatiq which could be anything but sounds like something quite local should get 10 of the proceeds and neighbouring areas similarly undefined should have 3 the latter stipulation would seem to be an attempt to micro manage internal affairs of a potential autonomous federal region the paper on the judiciary does not seem to relate to the federalism at all for example it does not include much in the way of guaranteed representation in the constitutional court on a territorial basis and that is pretty much it not much to write about and many blank spaces as far as the detailed workings of federalism are concerned however the libyan drafting committee is to be congratulated on its efforts to achieve greater clarity regarding the division of power between the centre and the provinces than what has emerged in iraq still today almost 10 years after the adoption of the post baath constitution in october 2005 iraq is struggling to define the relationship between baghdad current and future federal regions and ordinary governorates the decision by the new abadi government to withdraw a legal challenge to far ranging revisions of the provincial powers law passed by the previous parliament in 2013 really does nothing to clear up the situation symptomatically the move was coupled with an initiative to introduce revisions to the revised law by comparison these libyan papers offer at least a modicum of clarity as regards the intended division of power between the centre and the provinces the bigger question of course is whether something along the lines of this draft stands any change of popular democratic approval in the current chaotic conditions in libya if the draft converges in the direction of a decentralized system that retains central control of overarching sectors political currents of a far more radical nature including pure separatism are proliferating on the ground especially in the eastern cyrenaica region again compared to iraq cyrenaica arguably has a more dominant role in libya s oil production than kurdistan has in iraq making the question of what will be acceptable in terms of a federal deal potentially an even more contentious issue so far the libyan constitutional committee is offering far less to the provinces than the iraqi committee dominated by the kurds and one of the shiite parties sciri did in 2005 all in all it could offer a more viable formula for a unified state but it could also prompt so strong reactions that the constitutional process itself gets aborted and separatism prevails posted in federalism in the middle east comments off on federalism and decentralization in libya s constitutional proposals groundbreaking iraq supreme court ruling on the law on mp replacement posted by reidar visser on tuesday 16 december 2014 20 55 today the iraqi federal supreme court issued a press release indicating the court has changed its interpretation of the principles relating to vacant seats and replacement issues in the iraqi parliament the ruling itself is not yet available on the supreme court website but there is sufficient detail in the press release to gain an impression of the change that has arisen in essence for the first time the court stipulates that the number of personal votes achieved by candidates in the last general election will decide their eligibility to replace mps that vacate their seats for whatever reason normally getting a ministerial job or due to ill health or death it should be stressed that the correctness of the membership of the iraqi parliament sihhat adwiyat is decided by the iraqi parliament itself as a court of first instance with a two thirds majority only in those cases that are appealed does the court system and the law come into play meaning that there have been a significant number of cases where mps continued to hold their jobs because no one appealed their illegal possession of seats to the supreme court but to the extent that appeal cases have transpired only two legal criteria have hitherto been enforced by the supreme court the replacement must come from the same governorate and same political bloc kutla electoral list does not suffice as the mp that is being replaced these principles have been stressed in rulings where a replacement was attempted from a different governorate or a different kutla but at no time have considerations relating to the number of personal votes been part of the legal reasoning indeed in one of the rulings the court explicitly says replacement is governed solely by the law on deputy replacement that dates back to 2006 before the personal vote system had even been adopted ruling 100 of the iraqi federal supreme court from 2011 stipulating the law on deputy replacement as the legal basis for replacing mps today however personal votes are being used to disqualify a replacement candidate who was approved by parliament but had less votes than someone else from his kutla in the same governorate according to the court this has been done with reference to the revised electoral law being most in conformity with the iraqi constitution this interpretation by the court seems quite radical for a country with a strict civil law tradition since words such as replacement and membership don t even occur in the electoral law and since the replacement law which outlines criteria for governorate and kutla but not personal vote is still in force in this way the ruling seems to be of a rather innovative variety similar perhaps to a previous ruling which decreed that principles of democracy dictated iraq must change from the absolute remainder principle to the sainte lague method as basis for its electoral law given the politicized nature of the iraqi judiciary it makes sense to ask about possible political pressures behind this latest decision what happened was that adnan al zurfi a najaf politician who has been in and out of alliances with former pm maliki over the past years returned to his job as najaf governor after having been elected mp whereupon he promptly awarded his vacant seat to his own brother the iraqi supreme court is now clearly acting against the zurfi family and its powerful najaf governor whereas it is good to see the iraqi supreme court apparently standing up against rampant cronyism in the country s political life the theoretical parameters of this latest ruling are sufficiently detached from actual legal texts that it also raises questions about the court s professionalism and overall orientation a more democratic process would have been achieved if the iraqi parliament itself took the trouble of updating the law on candidate replacement to reflect the personal vote system posted in iraq parliament membership iraqi constitutional issues 1 comment after the rise of isis will iraq s shiites secede posted by reidar visser on friday 31 october 2014 15 11 as iraqi shiites celebrate the holy month of muharram and its key holiday of ashura 4 november it can be argued that radical sectarian mobilization among them has risen to a level unprecedented in modern iraqi history since 1927 when a series of episodes prompted calls among the shiites of iraq to form their own separate state this year too visions focusing on the possible separation of the shiite majority provinces of iraq as a separate political entity are back on the agenda the last time such ideas were being considered in an even remote way was in 2005 when abd al aziz al hakim of sciri launched his scheme for a single shiite federal entity stretching from basra to najaf it was the first time since 1927 that anything in the way of territorial separation of iraqi shiites had received any serious attention whatsoever however back then the project was characterized by only fragmented levels of support with most iraqi shiites still speaking in the name of a unitary state an even more radical movement to separate the south entirely had even less of a support base however following the rise to prominence of the islamic state of iraq and syria isis in 2014 iraqi shiite discourse on the iraqi state appears to have changed quite dramatically in the direction of separatist solutions it is true that some of the talk of a separate shiite entity often referred to as the sumer project in a reference to one of the ancient civilizations of iraq may have gained extra prominence because of the proliferation of social media meaning that a wider array of iraqi shiite voices are accessible to outside analysts than at any point...
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