Somali Constitutions 1960 2012 1960 and 2012 constitution

Somali Constitutions 1960 & 2012 1960 and 2012 constitution making processes ü Constitutional committees ü Draft constitution ü The Legislative Assembly becomes Constituent Body ü Adoption of the constitution Arafat Ali

Introduction Somalia was in trusteeship from 1950 till 1960. The Trusteeship Agreement provides no clear indications as to whether the Administering Authority was expected to prepare a constitutional Charter for the Trust Territory before independence, or whether this was an issue to be tackled by the Somali government after independence

Constitutional committees However, and despite this silence of the Trusteeship Agreement on the subject, the Administration started a process of writing a Constitution to be ready before the independence date For this purpose, two Committees were appointed, a Political Committee and a Technical Committee.

Constitutional committees Chairman of the Political Committee was the President of the Legislative Assembly. Other members of the committee included, the Prime Minister, the Cabinet Ministers, the Under-Secretary, the two Vice-presidents of the Legislative Assembly, the leaders of the parliamentary groups, the two Secretaries of the Parliament two functionaries residing in Mogadiscio, designated by the Prime Minister, one representative from each political parties, recognized and represented in the Legislative Assembly designated by the parties them selves

Constitutional committees The Technical Committee was chaired by Professor G. A, Costanzo, Dean of the Somali Institute of Law, Economics and Social Science, was composed of Lecturers of the same Institute, the President of the Court of Justice, the Magistrate of Accounts, the Head of the Cabinet of the Administrator, the Attorney General, a Counsellor for the Court of Justice, the Appeal Judge of Somalia, the Deputy Attorney General

Constitutional committees After informal approval by the Chairman of the Political Committee, seven Somalis were coopted. They were; the Chief Kadi, two Kadis of the Court of Justice, one Government Counsellor, two Head of Departments, Ministry of Finance, one Head of Department, Ministry of Economy

Draft constitution Between October 1957 and May 1959 the Technical Committee prepared a preliminary draft constitution of 141 articles, accompanied by 316 -page commentary, The framers of the Constitution did not start with a blank sheet, but built on existing constitutions. The Committee examined a variety of recent and old model of Constitutions worldwide. The French Constitution of 1946, the German Constitution of 1949 and the Italian Constitution of 1947 were examined.

Draft constitution At its first meeting on 11 October 1957 the technical committee decided to set up six Sub_ committees each of them dealing with specific chapters of the Constitution: general principles and rights and duties of men and citizens, Legislative functions, Executive functions, Decentralization, Judicial functions, constitutional guarantees. Each committee prepared draft articles on the chapter assigned to it and submitted it together with an explanatory report to the technical committee for discussion and approval.

The Legislative Assembly becomes Constituent Body With the completion of the draft text of the Constitution by the Technical Committee, the Legislative Assembly has been transformed into a Constituent Assembly for the purpose of framing the Constitution of the future State of Somali

adoptions of 1960 constitution On May 23 the Constituent Assembly began its debate on the political Committee's draft and after 42 sessions lasting 31 working days approved it. On June 27, 7960, a little more than two weeks before the independence date of 1 Julyl. The constitution was adopted by acclamation and, upon being promulgated by the provisional President of the Republic, it came into force on July 1, 1960. Eighty-Seven deputies were present during the approval of the final text of the Constitution Finally, in 1961, the Somali people ratified it through a referendum.

adoptions of 1960 constitution The Somali Charter is composed of a Preamble and 105 articles. The preamble that has no trace in the draft prepared by the Technical Committee, because of its inherent political character, evokes in the name of God the right for auto-determination of people and the determination to co-operate with all people for the consolidation of liberty, justice and peace in the world. These principles are universal principles driven from the United Nations Charter. The Constitution follows a fairly usual pattern providing for a Legislative Assembly (Article 49)a President as a Head of State, (Article 70) an the Prime Minister (Article 83)

2012 PROVISIONAL CONSTITUTION

2012 provisional constitution The process of Somalia’s constitution-making has passed through three phases: mandate and selection of the commission members, drafting of the constitution articles, and the adoption of the draft constitution. Interestingly, Article 11 of the Charter sets out a clear roadmap in which a ‘federal’ constitution should be made for the country. It calls for the government to establish an Independent Federal Constitution Commission (IFCC) which has to be ratified by parliament. The Charter then requires the IFCC to draft a ‘federal’ constitution, conduct public consultation and present it directly to the public.

2012 provisional constitution In 2009 the new government doubled the membership of the IFCC by adding fifteen new members. Moreover, in 2011, the Somali government created a nine-member Committee of Experts, under the leadership of a legal specialist Mohamed Jawari, in order to assist the IFCC.

Drafting the provisional Constitution In July 2010, the IFCC presented the first draft of the Constitution to the Somali public. Then, to improve the first draft, the Commission began to collect the views of the different sectors of society. The public reacted negatively to the draft, pointing to a number of issues including federalism, citizenship, role of Islam, and the structure of the government. Many politicians were also opposed, though others welcomed it.

Drafting the provisional Constitution In order to manage this negative public reaction, the newly constituted Committee of Experts and the previous members of the IFCC came together and revised the 2010 Draft Constitution. This time the two committees did not share their revised draft with the public. Instead, in April 2012 they presented it to the seven signatories of the 2011 UNPOS-prepared Roadmap: Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) Ambassador Augustine Mahiga, and six Somali politicians. the seven signatories secretly formed a review committee from their delegations. The review committee revised the Draft Constitution that the IFCC and Co. E presented while in Addis Ababa. The signatories did not reveal the names of the committee members they put together or the reasons behind revising some of the articles of the proposed draft-constitution.

Drafting the provisional Constitution Within a week, the secret review committee had convened another meeting, in Nairobi, to further edit and revise the Draft Constitution. The new committee worked for about two weeks on the document and completed its revisions in the middle of June 2012. Signatories were then called to sign the final draft of the constitution on June 22, 2012.

Constituent Assembly: The Process of Adopting the Constitution With respect to the provisional adoption of the constitution, the seven signatories decided to create a puppet assembly that would support their draft without making any changes. They signed a protocol, “Establishing the Somali National Constituent Assembly”. In this protocol, the signatories created an 825 -member ‘National Constituent Assembly’. According to the Protocol, the NCA could approve or reject the whole document. But they could not amend articles as they wish. Instead, the NCA could give recommendations to the signatories’ Technical Facilitation Committee which would pass the suggestions to the so-called ‘principals’.

Questions? comments Arafat Ali