In Syria, the place of Islam in the future Constitution is already raising concerns

The process which will lead to the adoption of a new Constitution in Syria is beginning to take shape. In an interview with the Al-Arabiya channel, Ahmed Al Charaa, the country’s new strongman, recently outlined the main points, assuring that his government would organize a national dialogue conference, at the end of which a committee of experts and various personalities would be responsible for drafting the country’s future fundamental law. In the “two to three years”, he said, before elections took place the following year.

The national conference is expected to be held on January 4 and 5, according to Ibrahim Hamidi, editor-in-chief ofAl Majallaa Saudi magazine and news site. 1,000 to 1,200 personalities will be invited – around a hundred per governorate – including some from the diaspora and civil society. The future Constitution will replace the fundamental law of 2012, suspended on December 12, at the same time as Parliament, in the wake of the conquest of Damascus by the fighters of Hayat Tahir Al-Sham (HTC).

“A bad signal”

“The choice of process says a lot about the intentions of the new powerunderlines Wissam Lahham, specialist in constitutional law at Saint-Joseph University in Beirut. By favoring a designated committee as the Assad family had already done when adopting the constitutions of 1973 and 2012, the new power ensures that it dominates the debates. This is a bad signal. »

With the reestablishment of the armed forces, its drafting is nevertheless one of the priority files of the current political transition. The future text must in fact define nothing less than the framework of the future Syrian state: will it be secular? will he maintain pan-Arabism as under Assad? or will it affirm the influence of Sunni Islam from which the HTC fighters come?

“Since 1920, our constitutional traditions have been almost unique among Arab states: they do not mention a state religion, although they stipulate that Islam is the religion of the president. (and Muslim law, one of the sources of jurisprudence, Editor’s note). Although I support maintaining our constitutional traditions, I would not be surprised if the new leaders adopt a text declaring Islam the state religion“, notes professor and political scientist Georges Jabbour, former presidential advisor under Hafez Al Assad.

“We are not guests on this earth”

The hypothesis of the primacy of Islam, in a country where around 30% of the population comes from religious and ethnic minorities, is already causing a stir.

The representatives of these communities very quickly made it known that they were part of public life and intended to remain so. “We, the Christians, come from the soil of the Levant. We are not guests on this earth, the one and only guarantee is the Constitution… And its drafting must be an inclusive national process,” insisted the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, Youhanna X, in a resounding homily delivered on December 25 in Damascus.

For their part, the Druze, who consistently recall their role in the fall of the Syrian regime, mention “decentralization as an ideal solution for Syria and (his inscription) in the Constitution “, as their leader, Sheikh Hikmat Al-Hijri, noted in a television interview.

To avoid endless debates, which could not succeed due to lack of consensus, Syrian intellectuals are proposing the temporary reinstatement of the 1950 Constitution, “the most democratic”, recently said the writer Yassin Al-Haj Saleh, exiled in Germany, in an article on the websiteAl Jumhuriya.