The new government of Syria has adopted a temporary constitution that concentrates great power in the hands of the Provisional President and maintains Islamic law as the basis of the legal system.
The Provisional President, Ahmed Al-Shara, signed a constitutional statement on Thursday after the abolition in January of the previous constitution under authoritarian President Bashar Al-Assad. Mr. Al-Shara, who led Mr. Al-Assad in December, promised to create an inclusive government, and announced it as the beginning of what he called the “new history” for the nation for decades of dictatorship and long civil war.
The statement guarantees “freedom of opinion, statement, information, publications and press.” If it was confirmed, it would be a dramatic departure from the Drakon supervisory state under Mr. Al-Assad. She also undertook to protect the rights of women and the rights of all Cyords during the five -year transitional period, after which a permanent constitution will be adopted and elections for the President and Parliament will take place.
However, some between the diverse Syrian mixtures of ethnic and religious groups remain skeptical about the sweeping promises of the new leader to create an inclusive government because of its roots as the head of the Islamic extremist insurgent group.
The president’s powers
The temporary constitution grants the executive authority of the President and the power to declare an emergency. The President appoints one third of the legislative choir, which will serve as a temporary parliament after a transitional period. The other two -thirds will be selected by the election commissions under the supervision of the committee appointed by the President.
The new constitution requires judicial independence. However, the President is exclusively responsible for the appointment of judges to the new Constitutional Court in Syria, a body that allegedly intended to consider Mr. Al-Shara to be responsible. The document does not provide power by any other authorities to approve its appointment, but only determines that the judges must be impartial.
Abdul Hamid Al-Awak, a member of the committee who developed a new institution, said on Thursday at a press conference that the statement provided the department of powers, unlike the concentration of power over other government sectors in the hands of Mr. Al-Assad.
But the extensive authority that the new statement maintains in the hands of the President during the transitional period could, in Syria, hoping for a sharp avert from more than five decades of dictatorship under Mr. Al-Assad and his father before him.
The UN Special Envoy for Syria, Guy Pedersen, said on Friday that he hoped that the constitutional statement would “move Syria to restore the rule of law and support a proper inclusive transition”.
Islamic law will remain a legal foundation
The temporary constitution has retained the provisions laid down by President Syria must be a Muslim as well as the old constitution. And like his predecessor, the new constitution gives Islamic law central. The new document says that this will be the main source of legal regulations and at the same time ensures that “freedom of faith is guaranteed”.
However, all rights, including the freedom of religion, may be limited if they are considered to be violating national security or the public order, inter alia, the Constitution.
The new government of Syria is led by Sunni Muslim former rebels who fought against Mr. Al-Assad during the Civil War in the country. From sweeping to power in Damascus skeptics questioned Mr. Al-Shara real beliefs.
As a rebel leader, Mr. Al-Shara commanded the Islamic armed group, once joined with al-Qaeda. Some question whether he actually left his former hard jihadist views, although his rebel group interrupted the ties with Al-Qaeda for years before taking power.
Promise to protect minorities
Syria is home to a variety of ethnic and religious groups, and the Constitution promises to protect the rights of all Cyclans and protect them from discrimination. But sectarian tension persists and they last week exploded brutally When the Assad loyalists attacked government security forces and, according to the UN groups and war monitoring groups, caused a hard intervention that was transferred to sectarian attacks on civilians.
The Syrian War Monitoring Observatory said that nearly 1,500 civilians were killed within a few days of violence.
These attacks seem to have been directed against Alawit’s minority, the offshoot of the Shiite Islam to which the Assad family belongs. The attacks were a reminder that Mr. Al-Shara was far from ensuring control of the whole Syrian territory and perhaps even all the forces associated with the government.
The United States and European nations were reluctant to lift sanctions from Assad until the new cheese leaders have shown that they are committed to the inclusive political process and to protect minority rights. The lift of these sanctions remains a decisive step towards reviving the beaten economy of the Earth-one of the most urgent challenges for the government of Mr. Al-Shara.
Although the Constitution is introduced to the protection of minority rights, it was concerned about at least one main ethnic minority, the Syrian Kurds.
The Syrian Democratic Council, the political wing of the Kurdish forces that dominate Northeast Syria, said that the new document “reproduced authoritarianism in a new form” and criticized what they say are not checked powerful powers.
It is not clear whether the Kurdish dissatisfaction with the Constitution will affect The agreement reached this week Between the new government of the country and the Kurdish forces supported by the United States to integrate them into the civil and military institutions of the government.
Freedom, with some exceptions
The commitment to guarantee freedom of opinion, expression, information, publications and printing ”comes with some exceptions, including the celebration of the Assad regime.
The constitutional statement guarantees women’s rights to education and work and adds that they will have full “social, economic and political rights”.
From his ascent to power, Mr. Al-Shara seemed to worship domestic and international concerns about the role of women in New Syria. In January, he presented a speech using a gender -sensitive language, rarely used by the leaders in the region. He emphasized the role of women in the revolution and the suffering they had experienced.
