Legal aspects of the political change in the Middle East

In: Orient: deutsche Zeitschrift für Politik, Wirtschaft und Kultur des Orients, Band 52, Heft 3, S. 11-19

Abstract

"The political collapse of some of the long-standing regimes in the Middle East and the unrests in other Middle Eastern states are a huge step forward on the way to transit the authoritarian Islamic shaped states into modern pluralistic democracies. This essay first outlines the legal orders of these states and identifies them as instruments of the authoritarian regimes for safeguarding and strengthening their political power. The background of the actual protest movements is seen in a deplorable state of the socio-economic affairs not only in the poorer but also in the oil-rich states and in the political restraints of public life which makes it impossible or difficult to discuss openly all actual questions and to engage freely in daily life. In the main part of the essay the need of the legal reforms is analyzed by giving proposals for state measures and hints for further discussions in order to promote democratic structures and procedures, to strengthen individual freedoms and guarantees and to grant social justice. At the end, the legal problem how to transit from an authoritarian constitution to a more democratic one is discussed using the examples of Tunisia and Egypt. Tunisia's interim president is going to prepare elections for a constitutional assembly on the basis of which elections should take place. This procedure may contradict the constitution in several aspects. In Egypt an interim constitution of which only some articles are democratically legitimized by a referendum should be the basis of the further process for parliamentary and presidential elections." (author's abstract)