Iraq's draft dodgers buy
time By Charles Recknagel
Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) spokesman Hamid
Kifai announced the council's agreement on an interim
constitution in Baghdad early Monday morning, speaking
with joy and relief after the council ran well over its
deadline of midnight on February 28 for finishing the
document.
"Finally, the Transitional
Administration Law has been passed, unanimously, after
intensive discussions for a few days - in fact, for a
few weeks," he said.
The interim constitution -
due to be signed into law on Wednesday - sets the
operating framework for the interim sovereign government
that is due to take power by June 30. Among other
provisions, it binds the coming government to respect
freedom of speech and religion and to maintain civilian
control of the military. Those are fundamental
guarantees of a civil society that were routinely
ignored by the former regime of Saddam Hussein.
But writing the temporary constitution proved
highly contentious because it is also the first attempt
by Iraqis to resolve many social and political divisions
that were suppressed by Saddam's dictatorship. These
include differences between Islamists and secularists
over the role of Islamic law, the future participation
of women in government, and demands by Kurds for
substantial autonomy.
Some of these issues have
now been resolved by the accord on the interim
constitution, while others proved too thorny and have
had to be put off. The next chance to take up the
postponed issues will come with the writing of Iraq's
permanent constitution. Under the US timetable for
handing over power, the permanent constitution is to be
written before general elections are held, probably some
time next year.
Observers say that a major
achievement of the US-appointed IGC has been to agree
that Islamic law, Sharia, will be one of several sources
for Iraq's legal code. Islamists had pushed for the
interim constitution to make Sharia the sole or, at
least, the main source of legislation, while secularists
rejected that demand.
In reaching a compromise,
the secularists pushed back an earlier resolution by
Islamists to revoke Iraq's current law mandating that
divorce and inheritance cases be tried in civil courts.
The Islamists had proposed that religious courts be set
up with jurisdiction over such cases.
Ammar
al-Shabandar is the representative in Baghdad for the
Iraq Foundation, a US-Iraqi group promoting human rights
and democracy. He says that most Iraqis will welcome the
fact that the interim constitution keeps the current
civil law, which grants women equal divorce and
inheritance rights as men.
"That law was made
during Abdul Karim Qassim's rule, and Abdul Karim Qassim
[deposed in 1963] is still very popular with the Iraqis.
They think that the law that [he] made is reasonable and
protects everybody's rights. And still, even during the
past regime [of Saddam Hussein], those who were too
religious to follow that law had the option, actually,
of following Sharia by mutual agreement instead of going
to a formal institution," al-Shabandar said, adding:
"Under the civil-status law, you can actually follow the
Sharia rules without having to establish Sharia courts.
And by the way, [the civil-status law] is basically
[founded] on Islamic law, but it is adapted to modern
situations."
But if the IGC succeeded in firmly
mapping out the role of Islamic law in Iraq, it remains
unclear whether it had similar success in addressing the
question of the participation of women in government.
Intifah Qanbar, a representative of Shi'ite
council member Ahmad Chalabi, told reporters that the
question of women's representation in ruling bodies had
not been discussed during the last meeting ahead of the
accord announcement. The last meeting was devoted to
wrapping up issues IGC members refused to postpone.
Women on the IGC have called previously for establishing
quotas in the constitution that guarantee women a
certain number of seats in parliament and other ruling
bodies.
Another key issue, the degree of Kurdish
self-rule, also appears to have been postponed until the
writing of the permanent constitution. The Kurds have
demanded extensive autonomy within Iraq under a federal
system, including substantial control over regional
financial resources - for example, oil revenues. Other
parties in Iraq want to limit federalism to the regional
exercise of administrative powers only - for example,
passing local ordinances.
IGC spokesman Kifai
told the press that "federalism ... has been approved as
a form of government." But he said details of the
agreement would only be announced on Wednesday.
Al-Shabandar says that working out the details
of federalism and other highly controversial issues was
complicated by the fact that all parties in Iraq -
including the US - regard the interim constitution as a
kind of first draft of the permanent constitution that
will follow.
Al-Shabandar predicts that the
interim document - which has not yet been made public -
will stop with recognizing the high-level of self-rule
the Kurds now enjoy and leave any constitutional
definition of their status for later. "[Top US
administrator in Iraq L Paul] Bremer will veto anything
that says the Kurds have federalism because they think
any part of this interim constitution will become part
of the permanent constitution later. This is one of the
fears," he said. "So I think what they will do right now
is that they will accept the status quo of the Kurdish
self-rule, but they will not define the form of
federalism."
The interim constitution contains
some 60 articles. It is not expected to establish any
mechanism for selecting the caretaker government that
will take power by June 30.
Charles
Recknagel is a senior correspondent for Gulf Affairs
and related issues in Prague. He has reported from Iraq,
Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkey, among other countries,
and written extensively on Iran.
Copyright (c) 2004, RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted
with the permission of Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave
NW, Washington DC 20036
