Could be worse

The Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Qabas "Firebrand" has published a draft of the fundamental law (temporary constitution) written by the Iraqi governing council.

They manage to include article 4 on Islam which Might satisfy Sistani and is acceptable to a bigoted atheist (me). In article 4:"Islam is the official religion of the state and is considered a fundamental source of legislation. " Well I don't like the idea of an official religion but I don't mind living in Italy (officially catholic). The key point is the Arabic equivalent of the article "a". This means the clause means nothing. Changing "a" to "the" would mean everything. As it is, the guarantee of equal rights for people of all sects (in article 9) and, to a lesser extent, the rest of article 4 "This Law respects the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi people and guarantees the complete freedom of the other religions and their practice of their rites." which guarantees freedom of religion should be enough protection against the first sentence of article 4 (if anyone pays any attention to the basic law).

It remains irritating that the Bush administration is willing to compromise with Sistani on the separation of church and state but not on elections. I guess they aren't too enthusiastic about the separation of church and state in the first place.

Other provisions are positively pink. Iraq gets the equal rights amendment as not ratified in the USA :
Article 41, point 6: "The guarantee of the rights of women to political and other participation in a manner that is equal to the rights of men in the entire society." The basic law sure doesn't include the second amendment, quite the opposite it mandates gun control:
Article 16: "It is not permitted to carry a weapon for self-defense without a permit issued in accordance with the law."

In fact, I regret to announce that I am more sympathetic to the classical liberal support for negative over positive rights than the IGC who write

Article 11: "An individual has a right to education, well-being, work and security, and the right to a just and open trial."

Hmm isn't that going a bit far ? Does the right to education include university education with open admission and no tuition (I'm for that but it sounds weird coming from a body appointed by an appointee of Bush). Does the right to well being mean a minimum income for all citizens. I mean would welfare reform as signed by Clinton be unconstitutional (I go with the IGC against Clinton on that one).

My objections are too the right to security and especially the right to work. By security I think they mean porotection from violent crime. That is, it is unconstitutional for there to be any violent crime in Iraq. This is an impossible goal. Similarly there has never been an economy (not even Sweden not even centrally planned economies with terrible labor shortages) with zero unemployment. 0 unemployment is an ideal like an ideal gas.

I think these are serious defects in the constition. It makes promises which can not be kept. This means that rights can't be trumps. It must and will be accepted that people will not have something which is theirs by right. This undermines the power of the other articles to guarantee rights absolutely with no exceptions allowed.

Now I am legally resident in Italy and so have the right to health (not health care, health) and a bruise. My rights are being violated and there is nothing to be done about it. My rights are not absolute.

Still the draft Iraqi fundamental is vastly superior to the Italian constition or to the original US constitution so better not be to picky.

Oh and I should admit that I don't read arabic and am only editing down and commenting on a post by Juan Cole