Examination of Syrian Draft Constitution by Russia

On May 24, 2016, Lebanese daily newspaper “Al-Akhbar” reported that Russia had finished drafting a constitution for Syria. Al-Akhbar pointed that this draft constitution is agreed upon by both Washington and Moscow and continued that: according to US-Russia agreement and in line with the execution of the UN resolution 22542015/, the two parties agreed on a timetable for drafting the constitution and on a framework for political transition by August 2016. This agreement was made by the International Syria Support Group in November 2015 with the following terms: 1) establishing a credible, inclusive and nonsectarian governance; 2) setting a schedule and process for drafting new constitution; 3) free and fair elections pursuant to the new constitution under the US supervision within 18 months. This report attracted different reactions from the Syrians most of whom couldn’t accept any countries’ intervention in their constitution draft without any exception. Pursuant of this issue, Russia denied its role in drafting the constitution and maintained that: “what the media issued as Russia drafting Syria new constitution is nothing but the Carter Center document. A document drafted after fifteen rounds of discussion with different Syrian diplomats and arrangements with the UN and de Mistura’s office. Moscow restated that Russia had no role in drafting new constitution and said “Moscow respects Syria’s sovereignty”; however, Russia distributed copies of the aforementioned draft on December 23 and 24, 2017 among the Syrian participants in Astana Talks. Basically, no country can claim that their constitution is the result of the intellectual and organizational experience of that country alone. For instance, Constitution of the United States of America (drafted in 1789) which is the world’s oldest constitution is not the result of just Thomas Jefferson and John Dickenson’s thoughts, but the French Montesquieu (16891755-) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Geneva, 1712- 78) had a tremendous impact on it. Therefore, making use of other countries’ experience as a model and exchanging views with them is recommended in the following cases: 1) drafting the constitution, especially cases regarding the “structural content of the constitution”, i.e. the content related to division of powers and their relations in regards to the extent they are independent and in cooperation with one another; 2) establishing a constitutional court and a constitutional council whose main authority is the supervision over the right execution of the constitution and prevention of crossing the boundaries set by the constitution for the powers, especially the boundaries of human rights and constitutional freedoms for each person. But it is the responsibility of the scholars of the same country to introduce and determine all the identity factors (with any extent of originality and authenticity) based on their intellectual history in the constitution. The present article aims at analyzing the conspicuous items in Syria’s draft constitution by Russia and answers the question of whether we can call this draft Syria’s constitution or not. We then examine the fact that how this draft has drawn Syria’s identity and structure and make use of contrastive analysis as a scientific

first, we examine important parts of this draft and then we contrast these parts with Syria’s constitutional articles (drafted in 2012). We also examine the agreement between the political and legal aspects of this draft (since the constitution means a comprehensive legal understanding of political phenomena) by comparing this draft with other countries’ constitutions. We, finally, examine how much this draft is adjusted to Syrian society’s intellectual structure and answer the following questions: 1. Can this draft maintain the unity of the present institutions in Syria? 2. Considering that the foundation of the constitution is to reconcile power and freedom, can this draft answer Syrian citizens’ concerns regarding their basic rights and freedoms. The general plan for the present research is as follows: - Introduction 1. Is Russia’s draft constitution for Syria technically a constitution draft? (what we mean by “technically” is 1. Regarding the concept of the constitution and the conventional methods of drafting it; 2. Regarding the legal nature of drafting a constitution 2. This Russia’s draft viewpoint of Syrian identity 3. This Russia’s draft viewpoint of Syria structure 4. This draft’s view as regards to the position of the president between the legislative and executive powers 5. This drafts view as regards to the position of Prime Minister 6. This drafts view with respect to the legislative power - onclusion