The Constitutional Committee Concludes the Third Day of the Eighth Session

The Constitutional Committee’s Small Body concluded the work of the third day of the Eighth Session of the meetings of the Constitutional Committee on Wednesday 1 June 2022. During the two sessions of today, the three delegations discussed the principle of “the supremacy of the Constitution and the position of international treaties” presented by the SNC delegation.

This principle states that the constitution should be the supreme law of the state and that no contradictory law or administrative instructions can be issued. It also highlights that international treaties, including the international agreements concerned with human rights, entail obligations on the state, and rights for Syrian citizens.

Commenting on today’s meetings, Ahmad Al Israwi, member of the Small Body, said “we discussed today the topic of the supremacy of the Constitution and the position of international treaties. We focused on the principle of supremacy of the constitution, because there should be nothing above the constitution, or anything that annul or suspend any of its provisions. There should not be any individual or group, neither the president of the republic nor any security agency or institution, capable of circumventing the constitution. We stressed on the importance of having a clear-cut provision in the constitution that prevents anyone from circumventing the constitution or being above it.”

“However, in the context of discussing the supremacy of the constitution, several issues were tackled, including sovereignty, the homeland, human rights and other issues.” He added; “we listened to the opinions of all parties, and we will amend our proposal in accordance with the logical comments we received, if any amendments are required, which can serve the desired constitution for a new Syria.”

With regards to the ideas presented by the SNC delegation on the status of international treaties and agreements, and their position in the constitution, Hasan Al Hariri, member of the Constitutional Committee’s Small Body said “from our perspective at the SNC, these treaties should have superiority over the normal laws. The reason for adopting this proposal is keenness of the SNC to guarantee human rights. In the past, Syria signed a treaty concerned with human rights violations but has not issue a special law on that regard in the Syrian law until 2022. Syrian signed the treaty in 2004, but no law regulating or activating the provisions of that treaty has been issued to become part of the Syrian legislations, so Syrian courts can issue judgements in accordance with existing legal provisions in that regard. This is a legitimate concern by the SNC about human rights violations, especially that the Syrian history is full of gross violations of human rights, that is why we made this proposal.”

“Furthermore, most countries of the world have integrated international treaties in their legislations and constitutions. Some countries gave international treaties and their constitutions equal status, such as the USA; other countries gave the treaties a status lower than the constitution but higher than the law, such as France; while other countries gave the treaties supremacy over the constitution, such as the Netherlands.” He added. “So, there are plenty of experiences in the world that provided for supremacy of the constitution and addressed the hierarchy of international laws in relation with national laws. So, state practices show that they can be either equal to national laws, within the legislations or the legal system of the state; higher than the legal system or equal to the constitution. That was our proposal.”

The meetings in the past two days discussed the principle of “maintaining and strengthening state’s institutions” presented by the regime delegation, and relevant constitutional language, and the principle of “unilateral coercive measures from a constitutional standpoint” presented by eight members of the civil society delegation. Meetings on the fourth day of the Eighth Session, on Thursday, is scheduled to discuss the principle of “transitional justice”.

Every day one of the parties introduces one of the constitutional principles whose titles have been agreed on, while other parties propose consensual language, recommendations and amendments on the proposed principles.