Does President hold any Real Power?

There aren’t any legal approaches capable of turning the president’s tasks mentioned in the Iraqi constitution into legitimate ones. The constitution, as well as the laws that are supposed to be approved by the Iraqi parliament, have not specified how the president can apply his description as the symbol of the country’s unity and ensurer of the respect of the constitution, and turn his tasks into clear executive plans of action.

It was important in the past few years for the Iraqi parliament to prepare a law that grants the president executive mechanisms to fulfill his constitutional description, especially when it comes to ensuring the respect of the constitution.

Article 60 of the Iraqi constitution presents proof that the president has executive powers. This article stirred wide controversy in the past four years after the Constitutional Court issued in 2010 an explanation for it, restricting the right of presenting draft laws to the executive authority. Parliament’s task became limited to voting on the draft laws submitted by the executive authority or presenting “law proposals” that the executive authority wouldn’t necessarily have to turn into draft laws.

Article 60 of the constitution states the following, “First: Draft laws shall be presented by the president of the republic and the Council of Ministers. Second: Proposed laws shall be presented by 10 members of the Council of Representatives or by one of its specialized committees.”

The first clause of the article joins again the cabinet and the president under one definition and grants both parties the right to submit draft laws. However, the past four years did not show that the president practiced his right to submit draft laws or even participate in preparing ones for the cabinet to present to the parliament, as per the constitution. The only exception was when former President Jalal Talabani presented the “demarcation of provinces” draft law in November 2011. The law was more political, rather than being an attempt to restitute the privileges of the president.