Has the draft constitution, presented to the House of Representatives, included a final solution for the local government, which is meant to resolve the centralization issue in Libya? Does this draft constitution stand a chance? Does it represent everyone? Ibrahim al-Baba, member of the Constitutional Drafting Assembly (CDA) and Head of the Local Government Authority, addressed these questions and several issues in the following interview.

Ibrahim al-Baba, how do you evaluate the CDA’s draft constitution?

Has the draft constitution, presented to the House of Representatives, included a final solution for the local government, which is meant to resolve the centralization issue in Libya? Does this draft constitution stand a chance? Does it represent everyone? Ibrahim al-Baba, member of the Constitutional Drafting Assembly (CDA) and Head of the Local Government Authority, addressed these questions and several issues in the following interview.

Ibrahim al-Baba, how do you evaluate the CDA’s draft constitution?

I believe this draft is very advanced compared to the Constitution of 1951. It is even more advanced than the Tunisian and Egyptian experiences. We tried to balance the content of this draft text to include all regional, demographic and geographic dimensions, in addition to the multiculturalism and diversity of the social components.

This draft constitution can be distinguished from other traditional constitutions in that it allocated full chapters for the army and police, whereas such issues in other classical constitutions are only mentioned as articles.

With regards to the local government chapter, we took into account a general principle based on extended decentralization under a unified state. The CDA studied the laws of neighboring states such as Tunisia and Morocco to benefit from their experience in formulating our own constitution.

After presenting the draft constitution to the House of Representatives, will it be considered final and subject to no further modifications?

The CDA presented the draft text to the House of Representatives and it will not be modified if the Libyan people adopted it in a referendum.

Did the CDA determine the mechanism and duration of this referendum?

In fact, the constitutional amendment did not specify the authority which will receive the constitution or the referendum’s mechanism. However, we submitted the draft constitution to the House of Representatives as a legislative authority, to prepare a referendum law and take the necessary actions in this regard.

Article 156 stipulates an independent local government the services of which are administered according to the principles of free management. What does this mean?

Free management means an extended decentralization of services, which is similar to the English system. In such a system, governorates and districts enjoy legal competences and independent financial assets and are subject only to oversight and judicial authorities with no governing body, albeit higher.

According to which standards the competences were defined?

Local government units, whether districts or governorates, have three types of competences – autonomous, common and movable – between them and the state. The constitution defines the general framework and the law regulates both common and moveable competences while districts are the decisive entities in regards to competences rather than the state.

Article 59 stipulates: “Local units, within the approved budget framework, have the right to manage their resources in accordance with the principles of good governance.” This article was described as legally vague and subject to misinterpretation since it did not define these resources. What is your comment on this?

It is the responsibility of the law to determine the resources and their subordination since the constitution cannot go into problematic details. Such text is present in the Tunisian Constitution and it does not undermine the power of the constitution. To the advantage of the Libyan case, these laws will be examined by both the Higher Council for Local Governance and the House of Representatives and will be subject to further control.

What do you mean by good governance?

It means subjecting the state administration to oversight and accountability authorities, which are represented by the Court of Audit, Administrative Control Authority and Anti-corruption commission.

The Higher Council for Local Governance consists only of districts’ governors in accordance with Article 164. Would it not have assisting committees?

The council will only consist of governors to maintain its advisory character. It may be possible to form committees in the future, but such issue will be determined by the law.

Why did you choose the Higher Council for Local Governance to be headquartered in Sabha?

The Political Accord identified Sabha as the council’s headquarters. We believe it is appropriate since in the Tunisian Constitution, on which we based our study, the Higher Council for Local Governance is headquartered outside the capital.

Does this mean that the constitution was based on a political agreement supposed to regulate a transitional phase?

It was not based on the Political Accord but rather referred to it.

The constitution is Libya’s guarantee for a state of law and better conditions. However, what is the wisdom of considering the experiences of neighboring countries, the circumstances of which do not differ from those of Libya?

These are novice experiences and cannot be judged. We referred to them only in terms of local governance. We did also refer to other international experiences. The Moroccan and Tunisian experiences adopted extended decentralization and we took an exact copy of such experiences.

Tunisia, nevertheless, suffers exclusion and centralization even after putting the constitution into effect?

The Tunisian Constitution is very good, but the execution is poor. We referred to the text, but the execution process will depend on the next phase. Additionally, the Libyan special circumstances were considered in the draft constitution.

Do you believe that the articles of the local government chapter would constitute a radical solution to centralization? Would they be enough to disregard federalism or separation?

If these articles are executed properly, the situation will be good. However, I am personally keen to add more details to this chapter since it concerns all Libyans who suffered the centralization of the city. I believe that choosing competent deputies will lead us in the right direction.

Why not add more details, especially since the chapter was criticized for being concise and subject to misinterpretation?

As I said, I am keen on more detailing. However, opinions varied and coincided on briefing the chapter. I advised defining the first level of the state in addition to determining its regions by name and documented such proposals as a member of the CDA. Hence, if the draft text is returned to the CDA for amendment, I will support detailing the local government chapter. The process currently depends on the laws which will further explain these texts.

Was the disagreement resolved by majority or consensus?

The disagreement was resolved by consensus since we have the Higher Council for Local Governance as a guarantee to represent the three regions. Thus, we postponed the conflict over these texts and left them to the laws to regulate.

Some articles were agreed upon by consensus while you had some reservations on other articles such as language and identity. Why?

On the contrary. We support the consensus and we held intensive meetings to achieve such end. Unfortunately, we did not reach any agreement. In my opinion, there is a great development in the drafts, since previously some members were reluctant to mention the Libyan components while in this draft, they were mentioned more than once.