It isn't going to be "Peoria," Rascal. But the "standard of value" is a good one.
"The Australian." -
Just the rule book for Baghdad's budding democrats
26mar04
IF I were a terrorist interested in Iraqi affairs, I would certainly reach for the plastique after reading Iraq's interim constitution because it would make me feel insecure, if not desperate.
For sure, it's only interim and the work of an interim Governing Council appointed by foreign invaders. And sure, Shia members of the council danced warily around the interim constitution before signing it. Who knows what interim plans they and others have for dealing with it in the future? But it's foggy thinking to ignore the document or underrate its importance.
The interim constitution (its 22-page text is available on cpa-iraq.org makes encouraging reading because it is intrinsically a hymn to orderliness. Consider its principal provisions.
The system of government proposed for Iraq is republican, federal, democratic and pluralistic. Power is to be shared between the federal government and regional governments. The federal system is to be based on "geographical and historical realities", thus denying legitimacy to mini-caliphates constructed on the basis of "origin, race, ethnicity, nationality or confession". Federal law is to prevail if contradicted by regional legislation.
Islam is recognised as the official religion and a source of legislation, with no law contradicting "universally agreed" Islamic tenets. However, the constitution guarantees the full religious rights of all Iraqis.
Every adult Iraqi gets to vote in fair, open and periodic elections. The armed forces are to be under civilian command and no military personnel may stand for office – nor any retired ones until they have been out of uniform for 18 months.
Courts and judges are to be independent, with no government instrumentality, "including the ministry of justice", having authority over them. The courts alone may issue search warrants allowing police or other officials to enter private houses. Without a warrant, nobody can legitimately get through the door. Civilians can't be tried by military tribunals. Trials before constituted courts must be speedy and open, with everybody entitled to be represented by competent counsel. Torture, "in all forms, physical or mental", is outlawed.
Nobody is permitted to own, carry, buy or sell arms without a licence. Militias are to be placed under central armed forces command.
Public property – oil pipelines, say – is to be sacrosanct and its protection "the duty of every citizen". Every Iraqi will have the right to own property. Freedom of speech and the press are guaranteed, as is personal privacy. Iraqis will be able to join unions, form political parties, demonstrate and strike, and travel wherever they wish within their country and abroad. Slavery and forced labour are abolished. Everybody will be entitled to education, healthcare and social security.
Sure, this interim constitution is no more than a set of ideas in search of substance, the search probably hazardous. But ideas are difficult to car-bomb and in post-Saddam Iraq ideas have momentum.
Hundreds of newspapers have jumped into existence in the past year, many of them ratbag rags that act as mouthpieces for interest groups. Maybe Western example helped set this scene. But more than 30 papers have respectable enough provenance to go on line. A national English language daily, Iraq Today (www.iraq-today.com), started by a young Iraqi-American journalist named Hassan Fattah soon after Baghdad fell, is exemplary in its tough-minded independence.
The Americans are in the process of handing over their apparently bungled and futile propaganda television channel to an independent Iraqi broadcasting authority for the purpose of creating a public broadcasting service on the lines of the BBC and ABC. The Iraqi authority will also issue private TV and radio operating licences and attempt to get industry agreement on codes of conduct.
In short, through an already free media, virtually all Iraqis will know of the existence of the interim constitution before the national elections, due in about nine months. A high proportion will be familiar with the ideas it contains. (So will a number of people beyond Iraq. Neil MacFarquhar reported in The New York Times last weekend that, since Saddam Hussein's departure, Syrians have become bolder in challenging their overlords. Movie-maker Omar Amiralay has just produced a documentary called A Flood in Baath Country He told MacFarquhar: "I think the sense of terror has evaporated.")
The ideas in the constitution will be debated in coffee shops in the run-up to the elections, in the National Assembly the elections will create and during the referendum likely to be called to lock a permanent constitution into place.
This interim constitution draws a line in the sand. If you're against it, why? Please explain. Do you want torture restored? Are you telling Iraqis: "Open your door or we'll kick it down"? Are you advocating state ownership of everything? Or a theocracy? A possible response: Been there. Done this. Heard about that. No big winners.
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