*Fares Sassine is a professor of philosophy at the Lebanese University and a writer on Lebanese affairs. He is currently preparing a study on the Lebanese parliament for the LCPS.
Is it time to prepare a balance sheet for the 1992 parliament? This would appear somewhat premature given that parliament's term does not officially end before October 16, 1996, and that the transcription of the minutes of the legislature's plenary sessions is not well advanced, while the minutes of the parliamentary commissions remain inaccessible to researchers. Any rush to judgment would risk lacking objectivity. At this stage, however, we can examine the general developments in parliament since 1992 on the basis of the available information, without pretending to be exhaustive or final in our conclusions.
The 1992 parliament has several specific characteristics which we must mention in order to better evaluate its achievements:
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To what extent has the 1992 parliament, in light of the previous points and a regional context marked by the obstacles in the peace negotiations, been successful in achieving its stated objectives?[3] We can begin by saying that the leading figures who boycotted the 1992 elections do not regret their decision. For example, the National Bloc leader Raymond Eddé has declared that "the experience of the past four years has exposed those who pretended that they could mount an opposition from inside parliament. I ask them, Œwhat law were they able to block that was voted or imposed?'"[4] Similarly, the Aounists have also seen the boycott as something positive,[5] and have listed five of its achievements: (a) it cast doubt on parliament's representativity; (b) it led to a satisfactory reunification of what it called the Christian "street"; (c) it enhanced the image of opposition leaders while tarnishing that of the political class; (d) its themes found their way into the platform of the Catholic Synod of December 1995; and (e) it increased the stature and popularity of opposition leaders.
Despite these arguments, there was a mood of regret among several of those who called for a boycott. Their fear was that a forced absence from the political scene would lead to nothing less than their political disappearance. Christian politicians who participated in the elections justified their decision on several grounds: that it was imposed by "new regional realities" a euphemism for Syrian predominance in Lebanon which it was absurd to ignore; that it preserved the Christian presence in and at the head of parliamentary commissions, which could only be regained with great difficulty; that it safeguarded Christian quotas in the public administration; and that it prevented an isolation of Christian regions from the attentions of the state.
The 1992 parliamentarians, conscious of the shadow of illegitimacy hanging over their institution, sought to compensate for it by projecting an image of tireless busyness: rare is the working day that deputies fail to use for meetings of their parliamentary commissions. The Beirut deputy ŒIsam NaŒman went so far as to describe the current legislature as "the most productive of parliaments."[6] The speaker, Nabih Birri, affirmed at the opening of the autumn session of parliament in 1995: "Three years have passed in the life of our assembly, years that have been rich in terms of productiveness, legislative initiatives, and patriotic stances. I can say with pride that the present National Assembly, over which I have the honor of presiding, has presented a model for legislatures in Lebanon, whether in terms of effort, work, results, or diligence; a model which has elicited the admiration and thanks of all Lebanese, even those who doubted the assembly's legitimacy..."
The two tables below provide a clearer sense of the extent of parliamentary activities since 1992.[7] They cover the period 1992-95. By March 1996, only one plenary session of parliament had been held, for approval of the budget, and was effectively transformed into a general policy debate of the government's activities. Table 1 shows the number of parliamentary sessions held, while Table 2 the number of laws passed.
The two special sessions of parliament were devoted, in 1993, to a discussion of the Oslo agreements, and, in 1995, to the Day of Solidarity with the South. By "periodic sessions," we mean those called for the election of a speaker or of members of the different parliamentary committees, for a confidence vote in the government, as well as for certain special elections (for example, of members to the Constitutional Council). As the parliamentary correspondent of al-Nahar, Nicholas Nassif, shows, the annual number of sessions has gradually declined since 1992.
As shown in Table 2, a total of 307 laws were acted on by parliament, among them one which was invalidated by the Constitutional Council in February 1995. By comparing the number of laws with the number of sessions devoted to legislation, Nicholas Nassif notes that in 1992-93, 6.47 laws were voted per session; in 1994, 13 per session; and in 1995, 16 per session. Mr. Nassif also draws attention to a rise in the relation of proposed laws compared to draft laws: the proportion increased from 9% in 1992-93 to 20% in 1995; the average for most parliaments throughout the world is 5%.[8]
The increasing rate of proposed laws compared to draft laws should not detract from one's questioning both the nature of the laws voted and parliament's ability to amend draft laws submitted to it by the government. Although that is outside the scope of this paper, we can examine, however, a number of important laws voted by parliament which have revealed the extent to which the legislature's input in the lawmaking process was limited when confronted with specific political objectives. Among these laws, all of which were sent to parliament by the government, were:
Parliament has also been unable to move on several other fronts, despite its constitutional right, indeed duty, to do so: no progress has been achieved in the procedures leading to the abolition of political confessionalism, something which the speaker, Nabih Birri, has reaffirmed is within his prerogatives. Other draft laws concerning new ministries dealing with justice, the creation of new administrative sub-divisions and decentralization, have yet to see the light of day. Similarly, Parliament has had relatively little input on draft budgets, despite their often lengthy discussion in parliamentary commissions and plenary sessions. Nor has it been able to establish control over the expenditures of the three bodies which attract the bulk of public funds, the Council for Development and Reconstruction (CDR), the Council of the South, and the Fund for the Return of the Displaced.
What can be said of the other main parliamentary activity, the control and oversight of the activities of the Council of Ministers? At the outset, the parliament refused to grant the government the special powers that it requested.[9] At the time it was common to hear the view not only in the president's and prime minister's circles that Lebanon was ruled by a "parliamentary regime." Two arguments were used to support this contention: that, according to article 65 of the Constitution, it is impossible for the Council of Ministers to dissolve parliament, creating an imbalance in the relation between the legislative and executive branches; and that the speaker of parliament has arbitrary powers to decide the timing of the discussion in the legislature of urgent draft laws proposed by the government.
Gradually, however, it became apparent that parliament could not withdraw confidence from the government, whether because of imperatives set down by the Syrians or for economic reasons. This reality fundamentally weakened parliament's ability to counter-balance the government's actions. Two events had a particularly damning impact on parliament's credibility: the extension of President Hrawi's mandate, and the interminable debate surrounding the 1996 budget. If the president's extended mandate showed how easy it was to marginalize the legislature in one of its major tasks, the election of a president, the budget debate proved that the verbosity of deputies was in inverse proportion to their capacity to substantially modify major government policies. While they were allowed to attack the government's proposal, they had little or no say in the final document. In the eyes of opinion-makers and the labor unions, the parliament was seen as the government's accomplice, and as equally blameworthy for the current state of affairs.
Notes
1. See Farid el-Khazen and Paul Salem (eds.), al-intikhabat al-'ula fi lubnan ma baŒd al-harb, al-arqam wal-waqaŒih wal-dalalat (Lebanon's First Post-War Elections: Facts, Figures, and Indicators), Lebanese Center for Policy Studies and Dar al-Nahar, 1993.
2. See Joseph Bahout's article in this section on the irregularities in and criticisms directed at the 1992 elections.
3. We can mention here the view of many deputies who would consider the question poorly posed: proud of their performances, they would answer that the only real measure of the success of individual deputies they refuse a judgment on parliament as an institution will be whether they are re-elected in the forthcoming elections.
4. Al-Nahar, February 12, 1996.
5. See, for example, al-Nahar, February 19, 1996.
6. Al-Nahar, October 27, 1993.
7. The tables were prepared by Nicholas Nassif, the parliamentary correspondent of the daily al-Nahar, in the annual supplement of the newspaper, December 30, 1995.
8. A proposed law is one presented by a deputy or group of deputies, while a draft law is presented by the government.
9. See Joseph Bahout's paper for an analysis of the episode.
10. Al-Hayat, August 20, 1995.