Iraq at a Crossroads: Constitutional Review Committee Fills in Crucial Gaps

Iraq is at a historical crossroads on the bumpy road to democracy. The Constitutional Review Committee (CRC) has all but completed the task assigned to it by the 2005 Constitution under the chairmanship of Sheikh Humam Hamoudi, the delegate of the largest parliamentary bloc, together with Dr. Fouad Masum, the head of the Kurdish bloc, and Dr. Selim Jiburi, a leading MP from the speaker's bloc. This smaller committee sits in the midst of concentric rings, first within a larger committee of strongly representative currents, from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's colleagues MPs Ali Allaq and Abbas Bayyati, to the more secularliberal MPs Aliya Nsayyef, Communist party secretary general Majid Hamid and Kurdish Feryad Rawanduzi. The Committee is supported by a small technical group comprising Dr. Mayyada Ihtishami, head of research in the Iraqi Parliament (the CoR, Council of Representatives), a dedicated rapporteur in the person of Dr. Hasan Yasiri, and Dr. Hamoudi's able aide Ali Fadhel Muhsin. A larger ring of the CRC consists of 27 MPs, then the full Parliament who must vote with a simple majority on the amendments before they are put before the people for approval. Nor did the CRC hesitate in soliciting comparative constitutional expertise to Dr.aw on the best practices it saw fit for Iraq's constitution