Syria’s new authorities has adopted a short lived structure that concentrates a lot energy within the palms of the interim president and retains Islamic regulation as the muse of the authorized system.
The interim president, Ahmed al-Shara, signed the constitutional declaration on Thursday following the dissolution in January of the earlier structure below the authoritarian president, Bashar al-Assad. Mr. al-Shara, who led the overthrow of Mr. al-Assad in December, had promised to type an inclusive authorities and he heralded this as the start of what he known as “a brand new historical past” for the nation after many years of dictatorship and an extended civil battle.
The declaration ensures “freedom of opinion, expression, info, publication and press.” If upheld, this may be a dramatic departure from the draconian surveillance state below Mr. al-Assad. It additionally pledges to safeguard ladies’s rights and the rights of all Syrians throughout a five-year transitional interval, after which a everlasting structure might be adopted and elections for a president and parliament might be held.
Nevertheless, some amongst Syria’s numerous mixture of ethnic and spiritual teams stay skeptical of the brand new chief’s sweeping guarantees to create an inclusive authorities due to his roots as the pinnacle of an Islamist extremist insurgent group.
The president’s powers
The short-term structure grants the president government authority and the facility to declare a state of emergency. The president will appoint one-third of the legislature, which can function an interim parliament for the transition interval. The opposite two-thirds might be chosen by electoral commissions overseen by a committee appointed by the president.
The brand new structure requires judicial independence. However the president is solely chargeable for appointing judges to Syria’s new constitutional courtroom, the physique ostensibly supposed to carry Mr. al-Shara accountable. The doc doesn’t grant energy to every other physique to approve his appointments however specifies solely that judges have to be neutral.
Abdul Hamid al-Awak, a member of the committee that drafted the brand new structure, advised a information convention on Thursday that the declaration ensured a separation of powers versus the focus of energy over different branches of presidency in Mr. al-Assad’s palms when he was in energy.
However the sweeping authority that the brand new declaration retains within the president’s palms in the course of the transitional interval might unnerve these in Syria who’re hoping for a pointy flip away from the greater than 5 many years of dictatorship below Mr. al-Assad and his father earlier than him.
The United Nations’ particular envoy for Syria, Man Pedersen, stated on Friday that he hoped the constitutional declaration “will transfer Syria towards restoring the rule of regulation and selling an orderly inclusive transition.”
Islamic regulation will stay authorized basis
The short-term structure has retained a provision that stipulates Syria’s president have to be a Muslim, as did the outdated structure. And like its precursor, the brand new structure offers central significance to Islamic regulation. The brand new doc says will probably be the principle supply of laws, whereas making certain that “freedom of perception is assured.”
Nevertheless, all rights, together with freedom of faith, could also be curtailed if they’re deemed to infringe on nationwide safety or public order, amongst different issues, the structure says.
Syria’s new authorities is led by Sunni Muslim former rebels who fought Mr. al-Assad in the course of the nation’s civil battle. Since sweeping to energy in Damascus, skeptics have questioned Mr. al-Shara’s true beliefs.
As a insurgent chief, Mr. al-Shara commanded an Islamist armed group as soon as allied with Al Qaeda. Some query whether or not he has really deserted his former hard-line jihadist views, although his insurgent group severed ties with Al Qaeda years earlier than he took energy.
Pledges to safeguard minorities
Syria is dwelling to a various vary of ethnic and spiritual teams, and the structure guarantees to guard the rights of all Syrians and defend them from discrimination. However sectarian tensions linger, and so they erupted viciously last week when Assad loyalists ambushed authorities safety forces, prompting a harsh crackdown that devolved into sectarian assaults on civilians, in keeping with the United Nations and battle monitoring teams.
The battle monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights stated almost 1,500 civilians have been killed in only a few days of violence.
These assaults seem to have been directed towards the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam to which the Assad household belongs. The assaults have been a reminder that Mr. al-Shara continues to be removed from having secured management over all Syrian territory, and presumably even over all forces linked to the federal government.
The US and European nations have been reluctant to raise Assad-era sanctions till Syria’s new leaders reveal that they’re dedicated to an inclusive political course of and to defending minority rights. The lifting of these sanctions stays an important step to resurrecting the nation’s battered financial system — one of the urgent challenges for Mr. al-Shara’s authorities.
Although the structure pledges to guard minority rights, it has sparked concern amongst no less than one main ethnic minority, the Syrian Kurds.
The Syrian Democratic Council, the political wing of the Kurdish-led forces that management northeastern Syria, stated the brand new doc “reproduced authoritarianism in a brand new type” and criticized what it stated have been unchecked government powers.
It’s unclear whether or not Kurdish dissatisfaction with the structure will have an effect on an agreement reached this week between the nation’s new authorities and the Kurdish-led forces backed by america to include them into the federal government’s civil and navy establishments.
Freedom, with some exceptions
The pledge to ensure freedom of opinion, expression, info, publication and press” comes with some exceptions, together with glorifying the Assad regime.
The constitutional declaration ensures ladies’s rights to schooling and work, including that they may have full “social, financial and political rights.”
Since his ascent to energy, Mr. al-Shara has appeared eager to assuage home and worldwide issues over the function of girls within the new Syria. In January, he delivered a speech utilizing gender-sensitive language, hardly ever utilized by leaders within the area. He highlighted the function of girls within the revolution, and the struggling they’d skilled.
