Smurfy pamphleteers
Photo caption: An Iraqi man picks up copies the the new constitution draft from boxes on the edge of a Baghdad, Iraq, garbage dump, Thursday Oct. 6 2005. Iraqis will vote on Oct. 15, on the country’s constitution after the country’s Shiite-led parliament ended a bitter dispute with Sunni Arabs about how the referendum will be conducted. (AP Photo/Asaad Muhsin)
Well, looks like most of the Iraqi people got, on October 6th, their first look at the constitution that they will be voting for or against on October 15.
Iraq Constitution Distributed Amid Attacks
By OMAR SINAN, Associated Press Writer Thu Oct 6, 9:07 PM ET
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Residents of one of Baghdad’s most insurgent-hit neighborhoods received copies of Iraq’s draft constitution Thursday, though some refused to take it and some shopkeepers balked at passing it out, fearing reprisals by militants determined to wreck the crucial Oct. 15 referendum.
[snip]
Despite the bloodshed, Iraqis in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Dora had their first look at the document they will vote on in nine days, though distribution of the U.N.-printed blue booklets - emblazoned “The constitution is in your hands” - got off to a slow start elsewhere.
Apparently those Smurfy pamphleteers over at the UN are responsible for the sky blue motif. General distribution was slated to happen only nine days before everyone votes on adoption. Clearly, that’s plenty of time for Publius to chew the fat with Brutus, Centinel, and the Federal Farmer.
You can bet, if adopted, the Iraqi people will forever celebrate October 15 as a major holiday. And look, it?s timed just 2 or 3 weeks before our own elections. What an amazing coincidence!
If I’m getting it correctly from the linked article, “gunmen” have threatened shopkeepers distributing the handouts, which is why they ended up in the dump.
I hit up Google for an english translation. I found it as a PDF, but Google also has a HTML version in it’s cache.
I’m not a 100% sure I can trust the above AP translation, but it does sound a lot better than this older version (PDF, dated July 27, 2005). Please remember that this is a comparison between the newer AP translation and the older translation at www.carnegieendowment.org (commentary and translation by Nathan J. Brown). (Google HTML cache here)
–Excerpts comparing the old and new draft constitution are below the fold –
OLD-
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE FREEDOMS
20. a. Freedom of religion, belief, and performance of religious rites are guaranteed in accordance
with the law.
b. The state shall provide for the defense of the Iraqi citizen from intellectual, political, and religious compulsion.
ARTICLE 10
1.The Iraqi citizen has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religious creed and religious rites.
NEW-
Article (39): Iraqis are free in their adherence to their personal status according to their own religion, sect, belief and choice, and that will be organized by law.
Article (40): 1st - The followers of every religion and sect are free in:
(a) the practice of their religious rites, including the (Shiite) Husseiniya Rites.
(b) the administration of religious endowments and their affairs and their religious institutions, and this will be organized by law. 2nd - The state guarantees freedom of worship and the protection of its places.
Comment - The new version appears to give people a clearer declaration of their rights. “guaranteed in accordance with the law” just bothers me, “organized by law” sounds better. Remember though, this is from two different translations.
OLD-
20 d. Compulsory service (the corvee), slavery, the slave trade, forced labor, or any work that is imposed on the Iraq citizen not in accordance with the provisions of the constitution or the law are forbidden.
NEW-
3rd - Forced labour, slavery and the commerce in slaves is forbidden, as is the trading in women or children or the sex trade
Comment- The phrase, “..not in accordance with the provisions of the constitution or the law are forbidden”, seems to mean that they could pass a law selling people into slavery, and that would be just fine with the constitution. The new version is much better.
OLD-
9. Iraqi citizens have the right to enjoy security and free health care. It is the responsibility of the central Iraqi state and the regional, provincial, local, and municipal governments to provide [health care] and to expand [it] in the fields of prevention, treatment, and protection of children, pregnant women, school students, workers, the disable, and the aged.
NEW-
Article (30): 1st - The state guarantees social and health insurance, the basics for a free and honourable life for the individual and the family - especially children and women - and works to protect them from illiteracy, fear and poverty and provides them with housing and the means to rehabilitate and take care of them. This shall be regulated by law.
Article (31): 1st - Every Iraqi has the right to health service, and the state is in charge of public health and guarantees the means of protection and treatment by building different kinds of hospitals and health institutions.
2nd - Individuals and associations have the right to build hospitals, dispensaries or private clinics under the supervision of the state. This shall be regulated by law.
Comment- Either way you have Hilary-Care. The newer lets individuals and associations build their own private healthcare facilities, I suppose like I read that they have in Britain.
OLD-
20 c. Postal, electronic, telegraphic, and telephonic messages are protected. Inspecting them and placing them under surveillance is forbidden except for legal necessity and defense of security in accordance with law.
NEW-
Article (38): The freedom of communications and exchanges by post, telegraph, telephone and by electronic and other means is guaranteed. They will not be monitored or spied upon or revealed except for legal and security necessity in accordance with the law.
Comment- Either way you have “built in” USA PATROT Act provisions. There’s no burden requiring the government to prove a search is “reasonable”, like in our Fourth Amendment.
Overall, as best as I can tell, I’d say that this is better than the earlier version. Their are few absolute rights, and few if any restrictions on what the government can not do. This constitution will put the Iraqi people a little closer to tyranny than we are today. It took 200+ years for our Constitution and Bill of Rights to be ?supremed? down to where we are now, looks like the Iraqi people are just a bit more “progressive”.
