The Syrian constitutional declaration: the president’s power, the individual governance, and the necessities of the stage

The constitutional declaration announced by the day before yesterday, Thursday, sparked different reactions in the Syrian arena, between those who considered that the Syrian constitutional declaration in its temporary form, which covers a period of five years, raised a phased necessity in order to build state institutions, and enable the central authority to complete the tasks entrusted to it in this period, in terms of controlling the security situation, improving services, and achieving transitional justice, and between those who saw it as a dedication to individual rule, through the status of many authorities in the hands of Republic. Criticism of the advertisement was also issued by some internal components, especially the Kurdish “self -management” in the east of the country.

According to the committee in charge of drafting the Syrian constitutional declaration, the People’s Assembly (Parliament) will take over the full legislative process, while the executive authority is under the President of the Republic. The announcement specified the period of the transitional phase of five years, and granted the President of the Republic the right to declare a state of emergency after the approval of the National Security Council. In explaining some of the provisions of this announcement, a member of the Syrian Constitutional Declaration Committee, Abdul Hamid Al -Awak, said that there will be no authority for the People’s Assembly to the presidency of the Republic in the transitional period, and it is not allowed to dismiss another authority. Under the announcement, the president has the right to appoint a third of the People’s Assembly, and a supreme committee forms the formation of voter sub -bodies, which elects two -thirds of the remaining members of the People’s Assembly.

Commenting on this announcement, Syrian lawyer Anwar Al -Bani, who is following the pursuit of perpetrators of violations in Syria, told Al -Arabi Al -Jadeed that he welcomes this temporary Syrian constitutional declaration, as it must be called, to settle and succeed the transitional phase. He explained that his welcome is due to several reasons: The first is that he stipulated the establishment of a transitional justice body, and considered international agreements as part of the advertisement, set the period of the transitional period, did not leave it open, and confessed to the necessity of the presence of parties and associations. Al -Bani considered that these are promising issues, but there are some reservations, such as the Syrian constitutional declaration exceeded its role to serve as a mini constitution, as it previously defined the sources of legislation and the president’s authorities, and thus confiscated the will of the Syrians and Syrians. It also did not stipulate the involvement of civil society by naming the members of the People’s Assembly, and did not include any texts on the formation of the judiciary to be completely independent, as well as naming the President of the Supreme Constitutional Court.

Muhammad Sabra: The constitutional declaration was absent, i.e. definition or seizure of the powers of the Supreme Constitutional Court

For his part, the lawyer and politician Mohamed Sabra, who participated in the delegations of the negotiating of the former Syrian opposition, said that the Syrian constitutional declaration establishes the rebuilding of the state, as electoral bodies will choose two -thirds of the members of the People’s Assembly. Sabra considered, in an interview with “Al -Arabi Al -Jadeed”, that the transitional phase may require a kind of authorities’ focus in the hands of the president, but this must be met with texts that determine the responsibility of the head of state in the event that he departs from the requirements of his position, so the rule says: “The more the person’s powers, the more responsibility for his work.”

The Syrian constitutional declaration is positive

Sabra saw that the advertisement in general is positive, but he was free from some of the matters that should have been stipulated, as some ambiguity in his articles, while other materials came in an undisciplined formulation. He added that “the ruling on the articles of the Syrian constitutional declaration is not through its legal or objective perfection, but rather through its ability to secure the political transition from the stage of brutality to the democratic stage.” Sabra pointed out that because of his brief nature, the advertisement left a lot of details of laws issued later, and “this may be a natural matter, but there are things that cannot be seized by a law without relying on a constitutional article that controls the limits of this law.” He praised the Syrian constitutional declaration that the international treaties and covenants approved by the Syrian state are considered part of the constitutional declaration. He said, “This is something we have been demanding for more than two decades.”

Sabra noticed that he missed the Syrian constitutional declaration, that is, a talk about “popular sovereignty”, and said, “This is not just a beautiful phrase, but rather an expression of the true owner of sovereignty in the state, and this institution, that is, popular sovereignty, allows citizens the ability to impose their will through the popular referendum and others, and the absence of this article pushes many questions”, noting that the Syrian constitutional declaration did not clarify who is the party that will approve the constitution. The permanent for the country, and whether it will be a popular referendum, or is it sufficient to form a committee to prepare it without the people have any authority to agree or object to it. Sabra also noted that he was absent from the constitutional declaration, that is, a definition or control of the powers of the Supreme Constitutional Court, the declaration of the issue of organizing Syrian nationality, and the determination of the conditions that must be met in those who take over the presidency of the Republic. He said: “It seems that the announcement has assumed that Mr. (Ahmed) Sharia is the president and that there is no need to set other conditions.” Sabra saw that the issuance of a constitutional declaration is a positive matter, and that the Syrians are now required not to view it as a honorable glorification or something that attacks it, but rather to discuss it rationally, and to enhance the positives in it, and to work to modify and correct the aspects of deficiency or negatives.

The authorities are concentrated in the hands of the President of the Republic

For his part, attorney Ghazwan Qarnifel, head of the Syrian Lawyers Assembly, said that the advertisement includes some positive aspects and has many negatives. Quranfil said, in an interview with “Al -Arabi Al -Jadeed”, that the Syrian constitutional declaration is completely concentrated in the hands of the President of the Republic and without the possibility of his question, “he is the head of the executive authority, and he is not responsible for the actions of this authority. He added that “this claim is not true, as the countries that have a presidential system also have mechanisms to monitor the work of the executive authority by Parliament.” He criticized that “the executive administration takes over one person, appointing the ministers and dismissing them, and appointing the members of the diplomatic corps and dismissing them, without even a consultative role for the parliament, but rather it is the one who appoints the members of Parliament themselves and the members of the Constitutional Court, so are we facing a presidential system or the Pharaoh system?” Carnation stopped at the issue of the president’s religion, which was determined by the declaration of Islam. He said, “The Syrians need power that guarantees equality in rights between people, and as long as this text contradicts the principle of equal citizenship, and contradicts the equal text of opportunities between citizens in assuming the public job, it could have been canceled.”

Ghazwan Qarnifel: The constitutional declaration is completely concentrated in the hands of the President of the Republic and without the possibility of his question

Carnation considered that it is also not logical that Islamic jurisprudence is a major source of legislation, “because the jurisprudence that its companions died a thousand years ago includes jurisprudential opinions and contradictory fatwas, and it is in the result a human opinion on religious issues, and it is not a religion, so it was sufficient to say that the values ​​of Sharia is one of the sources of legislation, and if I personally see that the free will for people is the source of legislation not to be forbidden and not forbidden Halal. ” He pointed out that the authors of the constitutional declaration, so that they mentioned the phrase “that the people are the source of the authorities.”

As for the Syrian human rights and journalist, Abdul Karim Snow, he said that the constitutional declarations are in all the transitional stages that countries similar to what happened in Syria have not tasked with solving all the problems that peoples suffer from. Snowi added to Al -Arabi Al -Jadeed that in the Syrian case, the constitutional declaration came as an urgent need to draw a road map and lay a general foundation and a legal and constitutional framework for the transitional stage, due to the legal vacuum that Syria is experiencing after the fall of the Bashar al -Assad regime and the cancellation of the 2013 constitution, the People’s Assembly and the Baath Party, so the constitutional declaration came to fill this void.

Regarding the focus of powers in the hands of the president, he expressed his belief that it is important in the transitional phase that there is a strong central government that imposes its sovereignty over the entire Syrian territories, and the weapon is limited to the state and runs all the border resources and crossings with the neighboring countries, in addition to the fact that the system of government in the declaration is a presidential similar to what exists in the United States, Turkey, Brazil and the Philippines, where the President takes over the management of the executive authority, appoints the ministers and is directly related to the president The President is entitled to appoint the temporary legislation council, but in the Syrian constitutional declaration, a third of the president will be appointed and the two -thirds are elected by a public body that has branches in the governorates to form the temporary legislative council.
Snowi pointed out that the announcement is a clear separation between the authorities by defining the powers of each authority, and the executive authority may not be assigned to the judicial and legislative authorities, to preserve the independence of the judiciary, the dissolution of the constitutional court that was in the defunct system and the reconstruction of a new constitutional court to monitor the constitutionality of laws, which will be translated into decisions, circulars and administrative regulations implemented by ministries, directorates, institutions and public bodies.

“Self -Administration” criticizes the constitutional declaration

Upon its issuance, the “self -administration” in northeastern Syria criticized the constitutional declaration, considering that it includes “a traditional pattern that is similar to the standards and standards followed by the Baath government,” as described. And the “self -administration” considered, in a statement, that the Syrian constitutional declaration “is inconsistent with the reality of Syria and the state of diversity in it”, and described it as “an actual forgery of the Syrian and societal identity of Syria, where the declaration is free from the imprint and spirit of the sons of Syria and its various components from Kurds and even Arabs, as well as from the Assyrian Syriac and other Syrian national components.”

The Kurdish National Council also commented in a statement, on Friday, the constitutional declaration by saying that it is “disappointing and far from the aspirations towards building a democratic state that reflects the true diversity of Syrian society,” considering that it was prepared by a committee that does not represent the various political, national and religious components, “which lost its totalitarianism and national consensus, and led to the perpetuation of the approach of exclusion.” He said that the declaration has strengthened the central government system and gave the President of the Republic wide powers without clear guarantees to separate the authorities or achieve institutional balance, which raises fears of reproduction of tyranny in new formulas, as he put it.