Details

On the 24^th September, the Rule of Law Programme MENA of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung organizes in cooperation with the Notre-Dame University a workshop in Louaizeh, Lebanon.

The Lebanese Republic, looking back on a rich history that shaped a cultural identity of religious and ethnic diversity, has faced a variety of constitutional and political challenges. These challenges are partly related to the influence of foreign powers, the system of sectarian balance and to tensions therein.

Today, decades after having established a political system with a power-sharing mechanism based on sectarian communities, Lebanon is revisiting its constitutional history, searching for answers regarding the best options for its future development, with several constitutional amendments being discussed.

Within the  series of round tables, legal scholars and representatives of government institutions will be brought together in order to discuss the a paper om “Public institutions and authorities, checks and balances in the constitutional order and governance” and to assess achievements and challenges during the past 100 years.

This session treats the institutional translation of the constitutional vagueness and the sectarian challenges. This respective institutional structure built on a similarly weak basis opens the door for personalisation, clientilism, feudalism, etc. Furthermore, a weak application of the separation of powers and checks and balances, unbalanced power among the different authorities, and an adapted/ mutated parliamentary system hinder the emergence of democracy and accountability. The roles, duties and responsibilities of the different authorities and of the Lebanese public institutions in general are being reviewed and discussed in this session.

Linking up to the last round-table on Confessional Consociationalism, the next round table, focusing on the institutional translation of the constitutional vagueness, is scheduled to take place on September 24th, 2018 at Notre-Dame University in Louaizeh.