Consolidating Power Through the Ambiguous: Ambiguity in the 2005 Iraqi Constitution and its Exploitation by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki

Abstract

Abstract Recent protests in Iraq have brought focus to many issues currently affecting the Iraqi government’s ability to govern. A source of some of these issues is the 2005 Constitution. The Constitution’s biggest flaw is its ambiguity that has led to a confused political order whereby Iraq’s political elite seek to interpret and take advantage of the Constitution for their personal benefits. Iraq’s first Prime Minister, and the longest reigning since the 2003 Occupation, Nouri al-Maliki, was the first to exploit constitutional ambiguity and perhaps the most effective at it. Two questions arise to the issue of constitutional ambiguity and its exploitation by the Prime Minister. Where did the ambiguity in the Iraqi Constitution come from and how exactly was the constitution ambiguous? And how and through what processes did Nouri al-Maliki exploit ambiguities in the Iraqi Constitution? This paper will argue that constitutional ambiguity was (I) brought about by the rushed drafting of the 2005 Iraqi Constitution that saw American interference in the process result in an ambiguous document posing problems in four key areas, and (II) that the first Prime Minister who dealt with the Constitution, Nouri al-Maliki, exploited the Constitution through three distinct processes: co-opting the Judiciary, bypassing bureaucracy through patronage networks, and legitimising decisions that suited his own benefit using the Constitution as justification. This paper hopes to serve as a case study for the exploitation of constitutional ambiguity in post-occupation countries, where constitutional drafting was in one way or another flawed or mishandled; and a explanation as to how and through what processes constitutional ambiguity can be exploited by a country’s executive leadership.