Alas, as the trial of Hashemi finally went ahead in absentia in Baghdad today, the meaningless declaration of the Interpol red flag notice as “unconstitutional” serves as a reminder about much deeper problems in the “new” Iraq. It doesn’t really matter who said it, Sunni, Shiite or Kurd: Today, the Iraqi constitution is merrily being violated by all sides. The term “unconstitutional” (ghayr al-dusturi) has no real meaning anymore in Iraqi Arabic. It is simply shorthand for “I wholeheartedly disagree with you (and, besides, I despise you)”.
There are of course numerous indications that the Iraqi judiciary is under severe political pressure from Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Over the past year or so it has produced a string of quixotic rulings and constitutional interpretations that leave doubts about its impartiality. Perhaps most noteworthy are the ruling on the independent commissions from January 2011 and the recent ruling on the right of parliament to question ministers (which, symptomatically perhaps, has yet to receive the mainstream media scrutiny it so badly deserves). Maliki’s own refusal to deal in a legal fashion with the various request for federalism referendums over the past year or so is in itself a flagrant constitutional violation – as is his consistent failure to present senior security officials for parliamentary approval.
But the critics of Maliki are not an inch better in terms of adhering to supposed constitutional ideals. With a series of extra-constitutional inventions in the Arbil agreement of 2010 – the centrepiece of their current campaign to unseat Maliki – they, too, are showing scant respect for the Iraqi constitution. In fact, their frequent assertion that they demand adherence to the Arbil agreement and the Iraqi constitution is a contradiction in terms since so much of Arbil involves upsetting the basic balance of power outlined in the constitution and as such should require a popular referendum before being implemented.
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