Thursday Evening Iraq Parliament News Highlights 12-22-22

Al-Hakim calls for support for the Sudanese government and (patience with it)

Political | 11:27 - 12/22/2022   Baghdad - Mawazine News, the head of the Wisdom Movement, Ammar al-Hakim, called today, Thursday, to support the government of Prime Minister Muhammad Shia' al-Sudani and "patience with it."

Al-Hakim said, in a statement received by Mawazine News, that "in the presence of the governor of Al-Muthanna, Ahmed Manfi, the host of Sheikh Ghassab Jari Hussein Al-Mashaalawi, Sheikh of the Al-Masha'ala Bani Hakim clan, it was our first stop when we visited Al-Muthanna Governorate, where we recalled the common history that brought us together with the people of this noble clan and the common positions." In great stations in the history of Iraq in fighting dictatorship and confronting terrorism.

Al-Hakim added, "We showed that Iraq paid a tax for its political and democratic system and the freedom that the Iraqi people enjoyed after the fall of the dictatorship. We called for pride in the honorary march that the Iraqis presented in defense of their homeland, and we stressed the need to remember and immortalize the martyrs' heroism in the fight against terrorism."

He continued, "We referred to the causes of the political crisis in the past year and attributed it to the imbalance produced by the political elections between the number of seats and the number of votes, between political representation and political weight, and between the number of voters and the number of participants, and we confirmed that there is a plan that contributed to these unbalanced results."

Al-Hakim called for "supporting the Sudanese government and being patient with it as long as the indicators indicate that it is moving in the right direction," explaining, "the nature of government performance in the past few years and the priority of the governorates in it, as well as the prime minister's briefing on most of the problems by virtue of the positions he occupied." Ended 29/N33

https://www.mawazin.net/Details.aspx?jimare=214799

Accountability and Justice" rejects the government's request to transfer the commission's files to the judiciary: it has no powers

Posted On2022-12-22 By Sotaliraq    Baghdad / Tamim Al-Hassan   The Accountability and Justice Commission (formerly de-Ba'athification) rejected the government's request to transfer its archives and files to the judiciary in preparation for its closure.

The last government request came in accordance with the ministerial program and the political agreement concluded between the forces of the ruling coalition (the State Administration).

The Commission confirms that there are millions of documents still on the way to scrutiny, and bear the names of a large number of those covered by the de-Baathification procedure.

The audit of most documents was delayed for more than 15 years, for reasons that may be “deliberate,” according to sources, and administrative delay, according to what the commission says.

There are at least one million Iraqis covered by the eradication, at least 25% of whom are from the former security services.

The Sunni forces have always seen de-Baathification as a tool of repression and a card against opponents that often appears during the election seasons.

And about the fate of the Accountability and Justice Commission following the recent political agreement, Basem Al-Badri, head of the commission, said in an interview with (Al-Mada): “The government’s request cannot be implemented at the present time.”

Al-Badri added, "We will not transfer our files and archives to any other party, and there is not yet any authority that can do that or terminate our work."

And the head of the commission continued: “We are still working according to Law No. 10 of 2008, and we will not implement the decision to transfer our files unless Parliament enacts a new law that cancels the old ones and sets a mechanism for transferring the archives and the end of our missions within clear time periods.”

According to what Al-Badri confirmed and leaked during the past two days, the government sent a request to the Commission requesting, based on the ministerial curriculum based on the political agreement, that the latter submit a report on the numbers of those covered by the Commission’s procedures within a month of the formation of the government.

According to the letter sent from the Prime Minister’s office to the Commission, the latter must submit the names of those included among “members of the teams (in the Baath Party) and above, the working member who enriched at the expense of public money by a final judicial decision, and the members of the repressive apparatus.”

Al-Badri says, commenting on the last paragraph, that: “The working member of the Baath Party who enriched at the expense of public money is not our competence, but rather the jurisdiction of the judiciary to decide on it.”

Al-Badri confirmed that what was stated in the leaked document is that the files and archives of the commission are deposited with two parties: the Secretariat of the Council of Ministers, the Judicial Council - the Public Prosecution, and subsequent inquiries about ablation cases are with these two parties only.

The government letter addressed to the Accountability Commission also indicates that those involved in the de-Baathification procedures have the right to object to the Judicial Cassation Commission.

Al-Badri revealed that "the authority entered from 2014 to the current year more than 7 million documents, and there are other significant numbers awaiting the entry process."

And the head of the commission stated that "these documents represent correspondence, official books, and names of people from among the former security services, the army, and the Baath Party."

And he added, "The entry process is a complicated one due to the similarity of names in some documents, and after that we must protect the document from manipulation or distortion, as we put special protection programs."

And Al-Badri indicated that “the files that are entered are available with the commission from 2004 and 2005, but their entry was delayed due to delay when transferring work tasks from the de-Baathification commission to accountability and justice.

The head of the commission indicated that the estimated numbers of those covered by the eradication procedures “touches one million individuals, only 250 thousand individuals in the former regime’s services from intelligence and intelligence, national security, and private security, in addition to other numbers from the army belonging to the party, and twice as many as the first number is from the civilians included.” Authority procedures.

Al-Badri explained that the accountability commission is one of the transitional justice bodies, which must have a certain period of time and end its work, but he says: “The security challenges of the political system and the threats affected the setting of real standards for following up these bodies and setting a time limit for the end of their tasks.”

The Sunni forces, which are the parties most in Iraq that seem to be targeted by the de-Baathification measures, have tried several times to transfer this file to the judiciary, and considered the delay in resolving the names of those involved behind it as political and punitive motives.

In 2016, a political agreement was reached between what was known as the “National Alliance”, which is the political umbrella for the Shiite forces and the Sunni parties, to enact a law called “Accountability and Prohibition of the Dissolved Baath Party.”

The new law included 22 articles after the “ban of Baathism” had been lifted, provided that the latter would be introduced by law alone.

In the end, the Sunnis, in accordance with the agreement with the Shiites, voted for the Ban-Baathification Law in 2016, while the other law has not yet been enacted.

Six Sunni ministers had refused, in February 2015, to pass amendments (the eradication law) within the Council of Ministers, due to fears that it would turn into a “trap” to punish all opponents of the government on charges of belonging to the Baath Party.

The Alliance of Forces - the political umbrella for the Sunnis - had hoped that the (accountability and justice) law would be completely abolished, converted into a judicial file, and not put an appendix in the law stating that the Baath Party would be banned "without clear controls."

The final draft of the Accountability Law provided for the replacement of the current Commission for Accountability and Justice, which was formed according to Law No. 10 of 2008, with another that bears the same name according to a new law, transferring with it all the previous rights and obligations and the former employees as well.

In his turn, the representative of the State of Law Coalition, Aref Al-Hamami, confirmed the agreement of the political forces to “close the eradication file and dissolve the accountability body.”

Al-Hamami said in a phone call with (Al-Mada) that "the government must adapt the legal situation to transfer the authority's property to the judiciary."

Al-Hamami, a member of the Parliament's Legal Committee, said, "The government's request to the commission to transfer its files is not considered a solution to the commission and an end to its duties."

And the deputy indicated that “the dissolution of the commission after transferring its property to the judiciary is by enacting a new law that cancels the previous law.  LINK

It Was Proposed By Iraq And Countries.

2022-12-21 03:41    Policy Iraq United Nations Countries   Shafaq News/ The Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced, on Wednesday, that the United Nations General Assembly had adopted a draft resolution entitled “International Day for the Prevention of Violent Extremism Conducive to Terrorism.”

The ministry said in a statement today that this project was submitted by Iraq in partnership with the State of Qatar, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and the Sultanate of Oman, under Items 14 and 121 of the agenda of the General Assembly at its seventy-seventh session, where 36 countries sponsored the resolution.

Thus, February 12 officially became the International Day to Prevent Violent Extremism Conducive to Terrorism, according to the statement.

In mid-2014, ISIS invaded vast areas and cities estimated at two-thirds of Iraq's area, before the Iraqi forces, backed by the international coalition led by the United States of America, managed to recover it from the grip of the extremist organization in a three-year military operation.  LINK

The Federal Minister Of Justice Receives The Head Of The Kurdistan Regional Government Representative Office In Baghdad

Posted On2022-12-22 By Sotaliraq   Professor “Faris Issa”, the head of the representative office of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Baghdad, on Wednesday morning (12/21/2022), visited the Federal Ministry of Justice and was received by Mr. “Khaled Shawani”, the Minister of Justice.

During the meeting, the government platform of the Federal Prime Minister, "Mohammed Shia'a Al-Sudani," was discussed and discussed, as well as the agreement signed between the forces forming the state alliance.

The two sides stressed the need to implement the government platform and the political agreement between the state alliance, which will solve many of the political complexes facing the government.

Baghdad, especially the region's share of the federal budget for the next year, and the activation of the Article 140 Implementation Committee and the Oil and Gas Law, which is one of the main problems between Baghdad and Erbil.   LINK