Syria's new constitution gives sweeping powers, ignores minority rights

Syria's new temporary constitution concentrates power in interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa's hands and fails to include enough protections for minorities, experts warn.

The declaration, signed into law on Thursday, establishes a five-year transitional period and follows the toppling of Bashar al-Assad's repressive government by Islamist-led rebels after nearly 14 years of civil war.

"The constitutional declaration grants absolute powers to the interim president," said Sam Dallah, a constitutional law professor and former spokesperson for the drafting committee of the 2012 constitution, who left Syria after the outbreak of the civil war.

He said it establishes "a presidential-type regime", where executive power rests with the interim president and the ministers he appoints, and does not include a post of prime minister.

Under the new framework, elections based on a new constitution will take place only after the transitional period.

According to the temporary constitution, Sharaa "appoints one-third" of the members of the future assembly and forms a committee to select the members of the electoral college that will elect the remaining parliamentarians.

Although the document describes the judiciary as "independent", it gives the interim president the power to appoint members of the Supreme Constitutional Court, the country's highest judicial authority.

- 'Separation of powers' -

"If the president directly or indirectly chooses the members of the People's Assembly, appoints and dismisses ministers, and appoints the members of the Constitutional Court, what remains of the principle of the separation of powers?" asks Dallah.

"The concentration of powers in the hands of a single person will inevitably lead to the monopolisation of decision-making," the expert warned.

While the constitutional declaration draws heavily from previous constitutions, it no longer includes mention of democracy.

One key change from the previous constitution is that Islamic jurisprudence is now described as "the principal source" of legislation, rather than just "a principal source".

Islam remains the religion of the head of state, Arabic the sole official language and the constitutional declaration offers no guarantees or protections for Syria's minorities.

This comes after the massacre of hundreds of civilians by the security forces in coastal Syria earlier this month, most of them members of the Alawite religious minority to which ousted President Bashar al-Assad belongs.

- Minority fears -

Hundreds of Kurds demonstrated in northeastern Syria on Friday against the constitutional declaration, which they say does not meet the aspirations of the country's minorities.

The temporary constitution has faced criticism from the autonomous administration, which recently reached an agreement with the new authorities for the integration of its institutions into the state.

The Kurds have rejected the declaration and "any attempt to reproduce the dictatorship". They called for "a fair distribution of power", "recognising the rights of all Syrian components" and "adopting a decentralised democratic system of government".

"Minorities in Syria are extremely worried about the way things are going, because everything suggests that the signs point to a gradual process of transformation of the Syrian Arab Republic into the Islamic Republic of Syria," said Tigrane Yegavian, a professor at Schiller University in Paris.

"The only thing that could reassure minorities, who rightly feel threatened by the new regime, was a kind of federalisation, with a guarantee of autonomy in education and justice," he added.

But lawyer Tarek al-Kurdi, a former member of the commission established by the UN in Geneva to draft a new constitution under Assad, said "the declaration came at a difficult time for Syria, after 54 years of dictatorship and 14 years of devastating war".

"It must be approached realistically, as it cannot be compared to the constitutions of stable countries," he told AFP.

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