Kurdistan Region Parliament to resume work on Kurdish constitution
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Kurdistan Region Parliament (KRP) Presidency met on Wednesday with heads from all political factions in the regional parliament and asked them to submit their thoughts on the region’s constitution within ten days.
The KRP intends to finish work on the Kurdistan Region constitution during the current parliamentary term, likely voting on its final draft during the region’s next parliamentary elections.
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The KRP Presidency is very keen to speed up work on the constitution, which is why it asked all the parliamentary factions to submit their thoughts on the matter within ten days.
"We will use the thoughts of the parliament's different factions on the constitution to prepare a national proposal. Then we will review it and finally form a committee to define the mechanism for applying it," Muna Nabi Qahwachi, the KRP Secretary, told Kurdistan 24.
"After receiving the thoughts of all the factions, we will decide on the formation of the committee that works on writing the constitution," Qahwachi added.
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"So far, it's not clear whether or not the same committee as before will be assigned to resume writing the constitution," Mohidin Hussein, head of the Communist faction at the parliament, told Kurdistan 24.
"We will send our thoughts to the KRP Presidency about the details of the committee, including whether voting on the constitution's articles to be through a certain majority or 50+1."
50+1 voting will mean the constitution will be approved if at least 51% of the members vote for it.
The committee will discuss each of the constitution’s articles and vote on them one by one. Then, the public will decide in a referendum on whether or not they want that constitution.
All parliament factions currently agree on writing the constitution during this parliament term. However, they don't all agree on whether to hold a referendum for the constitution together with the next parliamentary elections or separately hold a referendum for the constitution on a different date.
In 2005, most Arabs, Kurds, and other ethnic and religious components voted for Iraq's constitution. Article 120 of that constitution stipulates that the Kurdistan Region can have its own constitution provided it does not contradict Iraq's constitution.
Kurdish political parties have been struggling to agree on a constitution ever since. In 2009, they drafted a constitution. However, there was no referendum on whether or not to implement it due to disputes over certain articles.