March 10, 2004

Jordan Times

The Key Word is Interim

Editorial

Critics of the interim Iraqi constitution voiced their concerns and reservations about this body of laws even before the ink with which it was signed had dried. Criticism of the interim organic legislation came not only from within Iraq but also from outside! The very strength of the temporary constitution may rest on the fact that it did not satisfy everybody. In the final analysis, the legislation was a compromise between various conflicting aspirations. Probably the reason all sides finally accepted it was because it is temporary and not the final constitution on the basis of which the country will be governed. Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, the spiritual leader of the Shiite Muslims in Iraq, may have summed up this feature of the interim constitution quite well when he said that “any law ratified for the transitional period will lack legitimacy unless it is ratified by an elected national assembly.” 

This means that the real battle over terms of a permanent Iraqi constitution lies ahead and it will be much more difficult than the one that has already been won. Yet we must congratulate the Iraqi Governing Council for succeeding in stitching together a piece of legislation that could serve as a basis for the permanent organic law of the country. No matter what one may think of the interim constitution, it remains infinitely more democratic than the old constitution which had never been approved and adopted by democratic means. 

Suffice it to say that the signing of the constitution on Monday paves the way for the transfer of sovereignty to Iraq and its people on June 30. Critics, therefore, must learn to count the blessings of the temporary law instead of only its shortcomings. The process of democracy is never finite, it is continually dynamic. In Iraq, it is only nascent.