Reider Visser in The National on 18 February 2010 brings light to an underlooked raft of impending organisational changes to the governance of Iraq after the 7 March election. Many of the transitional provisions contained in Section 6, Chapter 2 of the 2005 Constitution, commencing at Article 132, will no longer apply to the newly […]
Category: Information Bits
UNAMI Human Rights Report 1 January 2009 – 30 June 2009
UNAMI’s 15th six monthly Human Rights Report for Iraq covers the period from 1 January 2009 to 30 June 2009. The report notes that during that period: 31 death row inmates were executed, including one woman According to information received from the High Judicial Council, between 1 January and 31 May 2009, Iraqi courts (excluding […]
IHEC urges Parliament to accelerate legislation of elections law
Al Sumaria reported on 10 September 2009 that the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) called on political entities to support the preparation mechanism for the electoral process due early 2010. The Commission urged the Parliament to accelerate the legislation of elections law mainly after the Council of Ministers approved a draft law on Tuesday 8 […]
Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR)
The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) was created in 2004 as the successor to the Coalition Provisional Authority Inspector General (CPA-IG). It was created by the US Congress to provide oversight of the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund (IRRF) and all obligations, expenditures, and revenues associated with reconstruction and rehabilitation activities in Iraq. […]
Constitutional Review Committee Report
The Constitutional Review Committee sub-committee’s report suggesting amendments to the Constitution is available from the the Council of Representatives website. This document includes the amendments along with U of U annotations. This copy is a marked up version of the original constitution. Blue text is said to represent amendments and red text additions. There are also […]
Black Iraqis claim discrimination in Basra
The Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) have published a fascinating short article by Abduladhim Karim about a little discussed minority in Basra. Discrimination is contrary to Article 14 of the Constitution which states: Iraqis are equal before the law without discrimination based on gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, origin, color, religion, sect, belief or […]
Draft Kurdish Constitution: Updated
The Kurdistan Regional Government has posted the text of the draft Kurdistan Region of Iraq constitution on its excellent website in Arabic and in Kurdish – English translation here. There have been a number of previous drafts – most recently in October 2008 – English translation here. Al-Sabaah, the Iraqi Government newspaper on 24 June […]
USIP / IOM report on Iraq’s displaced
Deborah Isser, senior rule of law adviser at the United States Institute of Peace, and Peter van der Auweraert senior legal adviser at the International Organisation for Migration have published a special report entitled ‘Land, Property, and the Challenge of Return for Iraq’s Displaced‘. The report draws on the assistance offered by both USIP and […]
News media warn of ‘dangerous’ draft NGO law
Al-Sabaah, the Government newspaper, published a supplement on 2 June 2009 relating to the draft Law on Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs). The law is described as ‘dangerous’. Many of the Articles can be found here On 8 June 2009, Niqash published a piece on this topic recording concerns expressed by NGOs.
Higher Judicial Council releases annual report
The Higher Judicial Council (HJC) has released its statistical report for 2008. The report sets out in tabular and graphic form figures for the number of cases heard before various different federal courts, the number of convictions for various different crimes, numbers of detainees and a lot of other analyses. The excellent HJC website contains an account […]