Picking apart the Iraqi Constitution II
Note: Part one is here.
d)The Iraqi national intelligence service shall gather information and assess threats to national security and offers advice to the Iraqi government. It is under civilian control; it is subjected to the supervision of the executive authority; it operates according to the law and to recognized human rights principles.
This, I think, is a good sample of “boilerplate” constitutional text (most of which I’ll skip over). You can see clearly that this limits the reach of government, as opposed to just defining which particular rights the Iraqis have
e) The Iraqi government shall respect and implement Iraq’s international commitments regarding the nonproliferation, non-development, non-production, and non-use of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. Associated equipment, material, technologies, and communications systems for use in the development, manufacture, production, and use of such weapons shall be banned.
Again, are we still pretending that the Iraqi people are the authors of this document?
2nd – Medals, official holidays, religious and national occasions and the official calendar shall be fixed by law.
While this isn’t bad unto itself, here in the US we prefer the phrase “The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation”. Make it clear that the document is granting strictly regulated powers
1st – This constitution shall be considered as the supreme and highest law in Iraq. It shall be binding throughout the whole country without exceptions.
2nd – No law that contradicts this constitution shall be passed; any passage in the regional constitutions and any other legal passages that contradict this constitution shall be considered null.
Boilerplate stuff that echoes our own.
Next up is citizens rights.
