Should Iraq adopt the U.S. Constitution as its own? Should our constitution serve as a model for other democracies? If it should be adapted, *how * should it be adapted? Which constitutional rights should be restricted for Iraquis? Where should rights be expanded?
The constitution will likely be based on the Transitional Constitution.
However, if a country’s people think that a Constitution is only a piece of paper, then that is all it is.
I would suggest that “we, the people of the United States of America” would be a bad way to start it off.
There’s a reason not every other country in the world with a Constitution has just adopted the U.S. model. A Constitution has to reflect the country it’s supposed to govern. Sure, some ideas can be swiped from the U.S. model, but you could also swipe some good ideas from the Japanese model, the Canadian model, the Dutch model, and the Brazilian model, couldn’t you?
Yes, all valid points. But I wasn’t clear. I meant to discuss precisely what it is about the U.S. Consititution, specifically, IS adaptable to Iraq, and what about it is not. What changes specifically would you make to the U.S. Constitution in order to adapt it to Iraq?
Biggest advantage: Federal nature - the overrepresentation of Sunni provinces in the Senate could make such a legislature more palatable to the Sunni’s in the face of a House Shia elected majority. (all of this assumes that the existing trio of factions become voting parties).
Is it federal enough to please the Kurds - would their status as likely swing faction in the Senate be enough for them to feel at home in the new Iraqi government?
Would the other minor groups (Turkmen, Assyrians/Chaldeans) be gerrymandered into their own voting districts (providing them with a figleaf of participation) or swallowed up in the masses?
The effective two-party system created by voting as in the US might mean that up with six congressional parties (Kurd left, Kurd right, Shia left, Shia right, Sunni left, Sunni right), but with only a very few parties able to field a viable presidential candidate.
The Iraqis might not want to have a strong, independent president in charge of the military, police, and secret police, as opposed to a weaker figurehead president, with authority concentrated in the legislature.
The bill of rights would probably need some tweaking, with SOCAS weakened or abolished. What to do with the second amendment would be an interesting question.
Interesting question. I tend to agree with MMI. I think the US Constitution would be great starting point, but it wasn’t designed for a truly multi-ethnic state. In that sense, a presidential council or a weaker single president would probably be more acceptable. There might be other models in countries which actually are multi-ethnic in nature. Canada or Switzerland (if that country even has a constitution) come to mind. Perhaps even India would be worth looking at-- as many problems as the country has, it is a reasonably functional democracy in a the non-Christian part of the world. Turkey as well.
Back about 110 years ago, the politicians in the Australian colonies did a bit of constitution writing. They had several models before them, including the US constitution and the unwritten British constitution. They took some bits from the US constitution (e.g., a Senate where the states have equal representation), and some bits from the British constitution (e.g., ministers have to be members of Parliament). But they also left some bits out which they coud have put in: there is nothing corresponding the the US Bill of Rights, and there’s no mention of the Prime Minister (even though one of the first acts of the first Governor General was to appoint a Prime Minister).
Morals:
(1) You don’t need to depends on just one model. During the last century, or so, numerous constitution have been written and ried out in practice. Iraq would no just want to follow one model devised for a different country, but would want to fit the constitution to the hopes and expectations of Iraqis.
(2) You should leave the constitution writing to the locals. If a constitution had been drafted in Westminster, it would probably have been unacceptable (in both big and little ways) to the people in Australia.
(3) Sometimes you can leave things out of a Constitution, though this may be easier in a relatively homogenous society which shares certain assumptions, e.g. that the government will respect civil liberties without there being a written Bill of Rights.
I don’t have a good brain for this, but I wanna play too.
I’ve heard a lot of (justified) griping from different groups in the country, most notably the Kurds who don’t necessarily want proportionate representation because they only make up 15-20% of the poulation. They’d get hammered all the time but the Shi’a & Sunnis, who can at least agree that they feel better when the Kurds aren’t around. And then, neither *should * the Kurd minority exercise disproportionate legislative power of the rest of the country.
I don’t remember seeing a provision for this in the Transitional Constitution, but how would a two-house legislature, similar to our own, fare at resolving that issue? In “Dar alAwl” each ethnic group would have a fixed and equal number of representatives and in “Dar alThani” each ethnic group would be represented proportionately (i.e. 55% Shi’a, 30% Sunni, 15% Kurd). As in the US, a bill would need to be approved by a majority in both houses and then pass the President who would egt line item veto powers 200 years from now.
So, say the Bill of Rights: are all men created equal? (I know, different document, but the principal is there.) Are these rights universal?
I mean, isn’t it a given that the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights are universal? If not, what does that say about our own society, if anything?
Didn’t the US write the constitution for Japan after WWII?
Have they changed it much since then?
I feel strongly that the new constitutions for Afghanistan and Iraq must have equality of the sexes and freedom of and from religion.
I would be ‘upset’ if our soldiers died so that women could second class citizens.
Moderator’s Note: Edited thread title for clarity.
They could borrow the part of the Iranian constitution which guarantees reserved seats to religious minorities.
The most logical universal reference would be the U.N. “Universal declaration of human rights”, IMO.
You seem to be forgetting that the original US constitution, with the Bill or Rights existed in a country where slavery was legal. Clearly, something beyong that is needed.
I will be surprised if the eventual Iraqi constiution has a clear separation of church and state clause. Hell, even the US constitution is unlcear on that (hence the endless SCotUS cases examining how to construe the 1st amendment).
Hmm. Either I’m forgetting that, or by my question I’m suggesting that this is exactly the kind of thing that needs to be considered.
Well, several posters have pooh-poohed the idea of anything like American-style separation of church and state, but if the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is used as the basis of an Iraqi Bill of Rights, there will at least have to be very robust respect for free exercise of religion:
So, no laws against “apostasy”, no restrictions aimed at pushing religious minorities into the closet, and I would say (taking Article 19 as well as 18 into account) no laws against “blasphemy” or “disrespecting Islam” either.
So is there anyone here who thinks that the Second Amendment represents a basic and universal human right, but would leave it out of the Iraqi constitution?
As far as the U.S Constitution goes, it makes a poor model for emerging democracies. (I’m not talking about the Bill of Rights here, but about the actual structure of government laid out in the Constitution.)
Our winner-takes-all electoral system basically mandates a two-party system. It wasn’t designed with a multi-ethnic state in mind. If the largest ethnicity/region can muster a majority of voters (as the Shia can in Iraq), then they can easily capture the presidency and a majority of the legislature and use their power to keep the other groups down.
The U.S. executive model is also a bit strong for countries that have little experience with democracy and lack an established infrastructure for democratic institutions. Our president is the head of state, the head of government, and the head of the armed forces. He also controls the substantial executive branch apparatus and bureaucracy. In the hands of a strongman populist president in a country with little concept of the idea of a “loyal opposition” (seems like we have enough trouble with the concept here), such concentrated government power can too easily be turned on critics of the regime.
An independent judiciary takes time to establish. We’ve been at it for more than 200 years and its still a partisanised process. And without an independent judiciary, guarantees of indvidual rights, limits of government power, and open, accountable government become very tenuous under the U.S. Constitutional model. If the executive or the dominant party in the legislature can control the selection process and stack the benches with cronies and party hacks, then the federal judiciary isn’t worth a pitcher of spit.
Here’s a Foreign Affairs article from last year discusses several models for an Iraqi government. (Although one of them, a contstitutional Hashemite monarchy, is ablsolute malarkey IMHO).
MEBuckner I was not intending to pooh-pooh SOCAS for Iraq altogether, just that it will probably be approached a little or a lot differently. A stable, secular, democratic, and pluralist Iraq would be splendid. Secularism is unlikely to be in high regard if Saddam is considered the embodiment of secularism. From the tiny amount I know of Islam there is, philosophically/historically at least, an acknowledgement of the desirability of SOCAS, if only because temporal power corrupts. (Kind of a good solid deToquevillian answer come to think of it )
I think the issue is more of whether any non-secularity(?) would be a figleaf of Islamism or a more concrete embrace of religion. Neither of the two clauses of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights you quoted would be incompatible with a state church/official religious sect. I agree that the worst abuses would be prevented by strict adherence to those clauses, if they are used a basis for Iraqi law. I also think that the Sunni/Shia split would prevent any sectarian basis for government making it into a constitution but could also create a situation where a “more Islamic than thou” contest gets out of hand.
Without some clue as to what an Iraqi constitutional convention or drafting procedure or ratification procedure will be I am just kind of flailing here. (Oh, you noticed)
Hmm. On preview I note that in my first post I speculated on SOCAS being abolished, which does sound pretty close to pooh-poohing the idea. (I think) I was thinking along the lines of a state religion though well short of a theocratic dictatorship. Although I may have been contemplating the “Sharia for Muslims” that some other countries toy with, which certainly would fly in the face of the Universal Declaration.
In general I agree with the problems with a two party system in a multi-ethnic state. I have been mulling this over since the first reading the OP. I am wondering if we are making too much of the Shia/Sunni Arab/Kurdish divisions. Is it conceivable that people will vote as blocs other than by creed and ethnicity? In the US two-party system for example, on many issues regional differences between candidates of the same party may exceed intrastate differences between candidates of opposing parties - I have a friend in Virginia who rationalized voting (gasp) Democrat by saying that the candidate would have been a Republican anywhere else. Could the same thing happen in Iraq - two miserable and ungainly semi-permanent coalitions (lets call them Dems and Reps for short) form between various interest groups throughout the whole of Iraq?
I am not sure that a proportional representation system would be much better, as voting by party slate might create a more disciplined and dogmatic majority (that cannot be bought off on a province by province basis). Unless, of course the Sunni Arabs, Shia, and Kurds don’t vote by those categories.