BAGHDAD: Iraq’s highest court yesterday overturned controversial term limits on senior posts, clearing the way for Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki to chase a third term in elections next year.
The decision, confirmed by multiple MPs and officials, comes with parliament considering a new election law ahead of legislative polls due to be held in April, Iraq’s first general election since 2010.
The federal supreme court ruled that because the law passed by MPs in January originated in parliament, it was unconstitutional, based on previous judicial rulings that have argued laws must be first proposed by Iraq’s cabinet.
“This should have come from the cabinet or the presidency only, not from parliament,” said Ali Shlah, an MP from Maliki’s State of Law alliance.
The decision was confirmed by Shlah, another MP and two officials.
MPs voted in January to adopt a measure to limit the president, premier and parliament speaker to two terms, but Maliki’s supporters insisted at the time that the motion was not legally-binding and would be struck down in the courts.
Iraq’s constitution does not set term limits for those posts.
Maliki said in a February 2011 interview, however, that he would not seek a third term in office, and said at the time that he wanted to pass a constitutional provision limiting his successors to two terms as prime minister.
The Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc, the main Kurdish alliance and the movement loyal to powerful Shia cleric Muqtada Al Sadr were the law’s principal parliamentary backers when it was approved earlier this year.
In continuing violence, attacks yesterday killed 11 people in the country, officials said, including six who were snatched from their homes and shot dead.
In separate attacks in northern Nineveh province, gunmen killed two prison guards and two civilians, while a roadside bomb killed another south of Baghdad, security and medical sources said.
Another blast in the southern city of Basra, which typically sees lower levels of violence than elsewhere in the country, left one person wounded.
AFP
