MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th October, 2019) The Syrian Constitutional Committee, which will be mandated with drafting a new constitution for the war-torn Syria, is expected to officially be launched and hold its first session in Geneva on Wednesday.
The SCC is envisaged as a 150-member body with the representation split equally between the Syrian government, opposition and civil society. Forty five of its members will form a smaller committee � 15 from each of the three represented groups � that will prepare constitutional initiatives, while the larger body will be responsible for adopting them. The committee will have two co-chairs: Hadi Bahra, former president of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition, representing the opposition, and lawmaker Ahmad Kuzbari, representing the government.
The opening ceremony of the Constitutional Committee will be commenced by UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen, followed by the government's Kuzbari, and then the opposition's Bahra - the order to which all parties consented. Pedersen is expected to outline the mandate of the committee and other nuances of its future work.
The UN envoy has already called the SCC the "first concrete political agreement" between the Syrian government and opposition. In a letter dated September 26 by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, the SCC is coined as "Syrian-led, Syrian-owned, credible, balanced and inclusive."
Much of the SCC's work is expected to build upon the UN Security Council Resolution 2254, which was unanimously adopted on December 18, 2015. It outlines a road map and timetable for the peace process in Syria, including an immediate ceasefire by the conflict parties and a UN-administered democratic election to be held within 18 months pursuant to the adoption of the new constitution. The Constitutional Committee will be mandated with drafting it.
One of its premises is that the constitution must be ready in six months. With the target set for April, it is known that the opposition part of the committee already has its own version of the draft and hopes to finish the work as early as in two months. They claim their draft to be inclusive of interest of all the Syrian people, including the Kurds, and ensure a true separation of power between the legislative, executive and judiciary branches.
According to the UN secretary general's letter, the committee might either review and amend the current Syrian constitution or draft a completely new one. The decision-making process will build upon the 75-percent voting threshold, or 113 members of the larger body and 34 members of the smaller body.
The resolution of the conflict in Syria, in its ninth year now, has been promoted within various mechanisms, including the so-called Astana talks under the mediation of Russia, Iran and Turkey which resulted in a landmark ceasefire agreement and the establishment of four de-escalation zones. The initial agreement to form the Constitutional Committee was reached during the Syrian National Dialogue Congress in January 2018 in the Russian city of Sochi.
The initial decision to establish a constitutional committee dates back to January 30, 2018, when the Syrian National Dialogue Congress was convened in the Russian city of Sochi. Earlier in the day, the Astana Troika vowed their full support of the SCC launch and expressing for it to pave way for a broader political process in Syria.
