And in a statement issued by Saleh, on Thursday, he stressed the need to launch a serious and urgent dialogue between the federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq, to find realistic mechanisms that guarantee what the Federal Supreme Court wanted to implement, and in a manner that guarantees the constitutional entitlements of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and all Iraqis by harnessing imports to serve citizens far away. On corruption, mismanagement and political manipulation.
Observers believe that the issuance of the decision in this congested atmosphere amid the intensification of political tensions, may increase the complexity of the scene, and cast a shadow over the interrupted constitutional periods and timings, due to the failure to hold a session to elect the President of the Republic.
Some of them go so far as to consider the political effects of the decision as putting sticks in the wheel of the tripartite alliance between al-Sadr, the Alliance of Sovereignty and the Kurdistan Democratic Party.
While the opinions of legal experts on the decision are divided between those who consider it fully consistent with the text and spirit of the Iraqi constitution, and those who consider it contrary to the provisions of the constitution, the federal system and the constitutional rights of the regions under it.
Commenting on the interactions after the decision was issued, Ihsan Al-Shammari, a professor of political science at the University of Baghdad, said in an interview with “Sky News Arabia”: “The issuance of the decision may not be linked to a political dimension, as the Kurdistan Democratic Party says, given that the court refused to postpone the request of a government. The Kurdistan Region of Iraq decides on the pronunciation of its decision, with regard to the issue of exporting oil outside the constitutional powers or outside the framework of the powers of the federal government by the region.”
The timing of the decision came shortly after a decision was issued to exclude Hoshyar Zebari, the Kurdistan Democratic candidate from running for the post of President of the Republic, according to Al-Shammari, adding: “The lack of progress in the negotiations between the two main Kurdish parties over the position of the new Iraqi president, the KDP said that the decision has political dimensions.”
Al-Shammari, who is also the director of the Center for Political Thinking, in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, adds: “The decision was long overdue and was supposed to have been issued many years before this time, and here the calls of the Iraqi President Barham Salih, to find a space of consensus between the federal government and the regional government on this issue, He wants them not to take advantage of this decision as part of the current intense political conflict, as the decision of the Federal Court, which must be respected, will eventually push it toward more political impasse and problems between the various Iraqi parties.
Salih’s call is also an attempt to motivate the Kurdish political parties, according to Al-Shammari: “To go towards legislating an oil and gas law in a way that harmonizes the interests of the Iraqis as a whole, and the Iraqi president here is pushing with high pragmatism to enter the line on this issue, as he is well aware that this decision may push towards a rapprochement between the two Kurdish parties. And in a way that enhances his chances of being re-elected for a second presidential term, especially since the Kurdistan Democratic Party cannot face this matter alone in Baghdad.
While Tariq Jawhar, writer and political researcher, said in an interview with “Sky News Arabia”: “The failure to enact a federal oil and gas law is what leads to these problems and the overlapping of powers between Baghdad and Erbil, and this Federal Court decision is an indication of what could be caused by the dispersal of the Kurdish position. In Baghdad, it has caused serious damage to the constitutional rights and powers of the Kurdistan Region.”
Jawhar adds: “This decision will unfortunately deepen the already deep problems between Baghdad and Erbil, and will negatively affect the overall political process in Iraq, especially with regard to forming the new government.”
It contradicts the constitution, as he explains, by saying: “Article 112 of the constitution explicitly and unequivocally stipulates that the federal government and the governments of the producing regions and governorates together formulate the strategic policies necessary for the development of oil and gas wealth, while Article 115 of it states that everything that is not stipulated In the exclusive competencies of the federal authorities, the regions and governorates that are not organized in a region, and the other powers shared between the federal government and regions, shall have priority, in which priority shall be given to the law of regions and governorates not organized in a region in the event of a dispute between them.
On Tuesday, the Federal Supreme Court of Iraq issued a ruling declaring the unconstitutionality of the oil and gas law of the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq, issued in 2007, and its abolition for violating the provisions of constitutional articles, as well as obligating the region to hand over oil production to the federal government.
The court decided to oblige the regional government to hand over “the entire oil production from the oil fields in the region and other areas, from which the Ministry of Natural Resources in the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq was extracting oil, and hand it over to the federal government represented by the Iraqi Ministry of Oil, and enable it to use its constitutional powers regarding oil exploration.” extract it and export it.
The decision of the Federal Supreme Court follows two complaints filed in 2012 and 2019, one of which was submitted by a former oil minister in the central government.
While the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq described the Supreme Court’s decision as unfair and unconstitutional, stressing that it will take “all constitutional, legal and judicial measures to ensure and protect all contracts concluded in the field of oil and gas.”
Adding that the Kurdistan Regional Government will not give up the rights of the region stipulated in the Iraqi constitution.