In a move that seemed conspicuously timed to the 15-day deadline for vetoes that applied to the old presidency council, President Jalal Talabani on 2 May sent a letter to parliament concerning the annulment of clause 136b of the law on the courts. The full text of that letter has yet to be published, but the paraphrases of it that have been circulating in Iraqi media are sufficiently interesting in themselves. Above all, they reveal a surprisingly widespread belief among Iraqi politicians that the Iraqi president still enjoys veto powers! On 3 May, the independent National Alliance politician Sabah al-Saadi told media that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had “told President Jalal Talabani to veto parliament’s changes to the law”.
On 7 May, Abd al-Mahdi al-Khaffaji of State of Law suggested that parliament should reconsider the legislation. Comments by State of Law adviser Fadil Muhammad to Al-Sharq al-Awsat on 7 May also seemed to reiterate the belief in “constitutional options” for the president to oppose the legislation, and most recently Jawad al-Shuhayli, a Sadrist of the National Alliance, indicated that “Talabani’s veto would lead to a second vote in parliament”.
The correct constitutional interpretation was finally stated in a letter from parliament speaker Usama al-Nujayfi on 8 May, in which he made clear that any attempt by Talabani to oppose the legislation would go beyond his constitutional prerogatives. In a fudged response, Talabani’s office yesterday issued a statement indicating that the 2 May letter was after all not intended as a veto, that the president had acted on letters received from the Iraqi cabinet, and that he “remained committed to the Iraqi constitution”.
An interesting complicating factor in the matter is the fact that the parliamentary action of 18 April was based on the first reading of the law which was introduced by government as far back as on 17 March 2007. In other words, it will be difficult for the government to rely on last year’s ruling by the federal supreme court to the effect that laws must be introduced to parliament by the executive only.
The whole affair shows the extent to which the new Iraqi constitutional framework still remains contested even in those areas where the charter that was adopted in 2005 is reasonably clear. Adding to the complexity is also the tendency of Iraqi politicians to oscillate between the two visions of Iraqi politics that are at stake here – power-sharing versus majoritarian democracy. Normally, Maliki is more majoritarian (as seen for example in the struggle about the security ministers), but in this case that role is actually played by Nujayfi.
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