In an earlier interview with Correspondents,  Constituent Body member Omar Al-Naas attributed the disagreements in the Body to a few problematic constitutional articles, and he promised to issue the Constitution before the end of March.

In an earlier interview with Correspondents,  Constituent Body member Omar Al-Naas attributed the disagreements in the Body to a few problematic constitutional articles, and he promised to issue the Constitution before the end of March.

Al-Naas’ colleague, Constituent Body member Abdulkader Kaddura, who decided to boycott the external workshops, thinks that these disagreements have deeper causes. Kaddura’s views seem to be affirmed by the absence of 25 Body members in a three-day meeting held in Oman on March 20 to reconcile the problematic articles and come up with a draft.

Although both Kaddura and Naas belong to same group within the Constituent body, they have very different points of view. These differences however, reveal some previously invisible alliances and antagonisms within an important body in the state.

Abdulkader Kaddura, from your point of view, what caused the delay in issuing the Constitution?

First of all, the administration is unable to manage the Constituent Body, for it does not have the necessary experience or knowledge. This administrative failure resulted in a waste of time, when members arrived to the discussions of certain drafts like the ruling system and the form of the state, without even having read these drafts, thinking that they have all the necessary knowledge.

Second, the geopolitical and tribal combination of the Body members left no room for learned constitutional thinkers. The constitutional education of the members is very poor, and the body has no president to direct it and commit to the schedule.

The disagreements appear to be centered on certain constitutional articles, while in fact it lays in the absence of trust between members, which increases tensions and deviates the focus from the higher public interest to conflicting tribal and factional interests.

How do you describe the higher public interest?

The higher public interest is a mixture of the interests of all Libyans, in creating a constitution that prevents the return of tyranny and enables Libyans to run their own country and fairly share their wealth.

In the public interest we shall drive for adapting Arabic as the official administrative language, like India did when it chose English to be the official language in a country that has 40 languages. Another option would be including  another language (Amazigh), which is active and has its pool of speakers. Or, we do not mention language at all.

Focusing on the higher public interest shall get us over the issue of the capital city, so we can leave issue to others in the future who will have more wisdom from us to make a decision.  Focusing on the higher public interest will make us more open to the other, to understand them; because if we do not understand them we will find ourselves persecuting them and vice versa.

Is this not a mere escape from problems that might become permanent constitutional predicaments?

Early on I called on the Body to produce a temporary constitution, or amend the constitutional declaration, or produce a small constitution of 40 chapters to guarantee civil rights and set the ruling system, president and court powers, to be replaced after five years when the country is stable again.

Five years can be enough for solving the security problems and cooling down grudges between people and regions. I proposed this idea and the record is available, however no one considered my proposal.

The president of the Body has no management skills and yet you still chose him?

I did not choose the President, and I cannot do much by myself. This is why I thought thoroughly about quitting the Body, but I saw that quitting would be a declaration of defeat. Therefore, I stayed and I raised my voice at every opportunity, and a day will come when people will be held accountable and on that day I will declare what I have recorded from day one.

We are not Tunisia or Egypt, we do not have their state institutions nor do we have their richness in constitutional intellectuals – we have nothing but a legacy of problems that cannot be solved with a constitution at the moment. What I fear the most is this constitution becoming in itself a reason for instability, similar to what happened in Iraq, where the country plunged into 13 years of chaos even though they had a constitution from the very beginning.

If the President of the Constituent Body Dr. Ali Tarhooni was disqualified from his position for having dual citizenship, do you think the work process in the Body would be positively or negatively affected?

The problem is not restricted to the process. The President of the Body appealed to the higher court and we are awaiting its decision. In the beginning we were not interested in this matter, however Tarhoonis’ opponents, who were close to him, used this point and filed the lawsuit. As for the work process, you can ask Tarhoonis’ Vice President, as he wants to issue a constitution for the Libyans from Oman.  

The problem lies in the quick response of the Electoral Commission. The problem also lies in the successes that UN is having in splitting the Libyan people. The started with the convention and then with the Parliament and then they turned to the Constituent Body. I west Libya for example, some Body members went to the meeting in Oman while others boycotted and like wise thing were in the east. The split is now widening even between the representatives of the same city, and all that happened after we were about to sign a constitutional draft.

Some say that your boycott at the meeting in Oman constitutes another obstacle in the face of reaching an agreement, and it contradicts the public interest that you talked about. How do you respond?

On the contrary, we were very close to reaching an agreement on many issues in the draft proposed by the 12-member work committee. However, many of those members were not law professionals and the draft failed with neither discussion nor voting.

Soon after, we were facing the fact that we should complete the task before March 24, then we were rushed into a workshop in Tunisia in which I participated and then a meeting in Oman. This course of action was a waste of time and I hope it was not intentional or caused by invisible hands that do not want peace and prosperity for our country.

The decisions from the Oman meeting are not binding, since the number of attending members was not sufficient, and they will be discussed and voted on when the members return.

Did the political crisis affect drafting the constitution and cause a split in the Constituent Body?

Absolutely, the political situation played an important role in diverting the members’ focus from the public interest to their regional and tribal interests. This is the cause of the delay; every member has interests to look after.

Does that not justify the members’ demand to meet outside the country in order to maintain distance from the complicated political situation and politicians intervening in their affairs?

If some of the members hold the mentality of the tribe or region, how would the place of the meeting make any difference – unless they are brainwashed outside of the country? Maybe there are parties that do not want the Libyans to have a dialogue with each other. Any intervention in the internal Libyan affairs is unacceptable, even though it comes from the United Nations. We do not need lecturing on the issues of women and minorities, we are fully aware of their problems. Unfortunately, however, we are to blame in allowing outsiders to intervene, because we did not uphold the public interest and we failed the Libyan people who were awaiting a constitution that they deserved.

According to the Body member who attended the Oman meeting, and according to Omar Al-Naas in his interview with Correspondents, the constitution will be proposed before the end of March, the draft has 220 chapters and many of the problematic issues were agreed upon? How do you comment?

I will say that I am a realist and I do not think that these statements will be applied. The agreement is nonbinding because almost half of the Constituent Body members were absent and even some of the attendees did not read it. However, the legal period agreed upon in Al-Skhairat ended on March 24, and now we are in a new situation.