At 4:00 PM, the symposium commenced with an opening session in which Professor Pascal Monin, the Director of the Observatory on Public Service and Good Governance, stated that “We are full of hope that Lebanon will emerge from its crisis and restore normal political life”. He added: “The law that regulates the establishment of parties is the Ottoman Associations Law issued in 1909. This alone reveals the depth of the problem and the necessity of developing the required legislation”.

Mr. Philipp Bremer, the head of the Rule of Law Program Middle East and North Africa in the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung represented by Mr. Paul Saadeh Project Manager at the Rule of Law Programme, followed by mentioning that “Political parties constitute one of the pillars of democratic systems, or even their most important pillar. Which therefore is a need for a society to organize its differences and disagreements. It is also a human need that pushes a person to come out of his shell and selfishness to turn towards others, towards the society”.

Afterwards, the Rector of Saint Joseph University of Beirut Prof. Salim Daccache revealed that political parties around the world today face difficulty in living through mutations, in the era of rapid changes, without this preventing the parties from resorting to opportunism.

Finally, the Former Minister of Interior Me. Ziad Baroud explained the advantages and disadvantages of the 1909 Ottoman law, stressing the necessity of developing it, especially when it comes to financial obligations.

Afterwards, the panel discussion consisted of MP Georges Okais (Member of the Lebanese Parliament), Professor Shawket Echtay (Lecturer at the Lebanese university) and Mrs. Yara Nassar (Project Manager of the Women Political Participation Portfolio at UNW). The panel was moderated by Professor Rizk Zgheib (Attorney-at-law, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law and Political Science at Saint Joseph University of Beirut). Also, a subsequent intervention over Zoom was given by Dr. Heike Merten (Managing Director of the Institute for German and International Party Law and Party Research at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf).  

The panel discussion ended with a Q&A session that took place in which the attendees participated lively. The entire workshop can be found on the following LINK.

At the end, based on the unanimous agreement by the present experts of the necessity to modify and develop the Ottoman Associations Law, issued in 1909, a policy paper was issued and can be found attached to this event report in both, Arabic and English, languages.