The Legislative Implications of the Absence of the Federation Council in Iraq A Comparative Study

Abstract

The Constitution of the Republic of Iraq of 2005 adopted the federal system as a form of state structure, based on granting its constituent units a degree of self-autonomy and on the distribution of authority among different levels of government, which necessitates embodying their participation in the federal legislative authority through a second legislative chamber representing those unitsm. This arrangement is known as bicameralism or legislative dualism and constitutes one of the fundamental pillars for achieving constitutional balance, as is the case in well-established federal systems such as those of the United States of America and the Federal Republic of Germany. However, the incomplete constitutional construction of the federal legislative authority in Iraq, resulting from the failure to establish the Council of the Union representing the regions and the governorates not incorporated into a region, despite the constitutional provision mandating its formation, has produced significant effects on the legislative competences of the federal parliament.This situation has led to the concentration of federal legislative power in the hands of the Council of Representatives and to the decline of the principle of constitutional participation of federal units in the process of federal law-making, contrary to the role played by federal councils in comparative federal systems—namely.