Iraqi Constitution August 25, 2005 Lauren Via Shelley, a partial translation of the Iraq constitution.
1. Islam is a main source for legislation. There’s their first problem. Article 1, Item 1 and already the constitution is shot to shit.
I hesitate to view “Islam is a main source of legislation” as anything more than an indication of the preexisting political dynamic in the country, though its inclusion was hardly a foregone conclusion. Obviously a constitution is just words and can be interpreted quite broadly. Now, historically there exists extensive Islamic jurisprudence, and likely Iraqi law will hew somewhat closely to laws of existing Islamic countries, which is very unfortunate. It isn’t the constitution which makes it so, though, but the prevailing political climate. After all, the worldwide Christian community disagrees on issues like homosexuality (Anglicans, Episcopalians, Methodists), education (intelligent design, Catholic schools), economics (liberation theology), and the morality of assassination. Yes, enshrining religion is the constitution puts institutional power in the hands of religious conservatives that will be hard to remove. We’ll just have to wait and see how the tensions within this constitution play out.
“a. No law may contradict Islamic standards. b. No law may contradict democratic standards. c. No law may contradict the essential rights and freedoms mentioned in this constitution.” Oh, my. They think they can do all those simultaneously? I don’t think that it’s possible to follow Islamic standards and democratic standards at the same time on every issue.
Steven, The difference between this constitution and the worldwide (or nationwide) Christian community is that, at least in America, religion was very specifically separated from state (I don’t need to explain this further). The problem is that religion is anti-reason, anti-democracy, and anti-human rights, and so long as a nation’s politics is beholden to it, it will continue to exist in a veritable stone age.
Heliologue, I hope that you are at least theoretically open to the possibility that religion can be pro-reason, co-existant with democracy, and pro-human rights. Like Dianne, I wonder how the tensions within the Iraqi constitution will play themselves out. My point is the enshrinement of Islam in the constitution is no more than one move in a political struggle between religious fundamentalism and secularism that existed in Iraq long before the constitution was drawn up, and will continue to exist long after. Words can be interpreted in many different ways; Islam is no different. Yes, there is a well established Islamic jurisprudence, but that doesn’t mean interpretation of Islamic law is settled. Just look at Shi’a Islam, which has rejected Sunni jurisprudence (Qur’an – custom of the prophet – consensus of the Muslim community – analogy) and therefore rejected the idea that “the gates of ijtihad are closed” and Islamic law can no longer be refined. Nothing is sunk yet – or, perhaps, the situation was already hopeless and nothing has changed.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s not the constitution that will cause human rights problems in Iraq, it’s the culture/political dynamic. An egalitarian government wouldn’t be handcuffed by Article 1, and a tyrannical government doesn’t need to use Article 1 as a justification. “Islam is the main source of legislation” doesn’t mean, on its face, accepting medieval jurisprudence. After all, Congress’ power to regulate “Commerce … among the several States” has been interpreted in such a fashion that it can use this power to regulate wholly intrastate noncommercial activity.