Iraq’s top judiciary announced yesterday that it has no power to dissolve parliament after Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr demanded the judiciary to do so within the maximum time limit before the end of the week amid Iraq’s suffocating political crisis. country.
Al-Sadr urged the Iraqi judiciary to dissolve parliament by the end of the week “following constitutional violations” represented by the expiration of presidential and prime ministerial elections, justifying his request that political blocs not give in to “the people’s demand for the dissolution of parliament”.
Both al-Sadr’s movement and its opponents, the coordination structure, continue to put pressure on the street as the situation between them worsens. Since July 30, al-Sadr’s supporters have been holding a sit-in in the courtyards of the Iraqi parliament, while supporters of the coordination framework two days ago started a counter sit-in at the walls of the Green Zone.
The Supreme Judicial Council, the country’s highest judicial body, said in a statement Sunday that it has no power to dissolve the House of Representatives.
He added: “The functions of the Judicial Council as a whole relate only to the administration of the judiciary, and it does not include any powers that allow the judiciary to intervene in the affairs of the legislature or the executive, in accordance with the principle of separation between the three legislative, executive and judicial authorities” contained in the constitution.
Article 64 of the Iraqi Constitution states that the Council of Representatives shall be dissolved “by an absolute majority of its members at the request of one-third of its members or at the request of the Prime Minister and with the approval of the President”. Republic”.
After early parliamentary elections in October 2021, Iraq is in complete political paralysis due to the inability to elect a new president of the republic and form a new government.
In a statement on Sunday, the Supreme Judicial Council called on “political authorities and media outlets” not to “involve the judiciary in political rivalry and competition,” emphasizing that the judiciary “is at an equal distance from everyone.”
