Twenty years ago, Lebanese MPs gathered in the Saudi city of Ta’ef and ratified the Document of National Accord, also known as the Ta’ef accord, putting an end to the Lebanese civil war. It established the second Lebanese republic on the ruins of the first, which was founded on the 1943 National Pact.

The domestic and regional events that dictated the terms of the agreement are not what our study will focus on. The article will instead evaluate what has been accomplished so far and offer a comparison of the powers of each of the three top state officials before and after the Ta’ef accord.

History

On September 29, 1989, 63 of the 76 surviving members of Lebanon’s 1972 Parliament gathered in the city of Ta’ef to reach a settlement to end the civil war at the request of Lakhdar Ibrahimi, envoy of the Arab Follow-Up Committee, set up by the Arab League. The meeting came against the backdrop of an escalating military situation and a power vacuum created by the expiration of Amine Gemayel’s presidency without the election of a successor. The situation worsened after Gemayel appointed then army-commander  Michel Aoun to head a military government considered illegal in West Beirut, especially after the resignation of Muslim ministers.

The deputies gathered in Ta’ef in defiance of Aoun, who had opposed a meeting, and, on October 22, they approved the framework of the accord. On November 4, Aoun issued a decree dissolving Parliament, but the National Assembly met the next day at the Qlaia’at air base in northern Lebanon and ratified the Ta’ef accord (58 votes and three abstentions), electing Rene Moa’awad as president. Some of the Ta’ef accord’s stipulated reforms were integrated into the Constitution by the endorsement of the Constitutional Law on September 21, 1990.

General principles

On September 21, 1990, a preamble was added to the Lebanese Constitution, as part of constitutional amendments stipulated in the accord. It most significantly resolved an old debate on the identity of Lebanon stressing that “Lebanon is Arab in belonging and identity. It is an active and founding member of the Arab League and is committed to the league’s charter. It is an active and founding member of the United Nations Organization and is committed to its charters…”

Section H of the preamble states, “…There shall be no fragmentation, no partition, and no repatriation [of Palestinians in Lebanon].”  Section G  stresses that the abolition of “political sectarianism is a fundamental national objective.”

Presidential jurisdiction

The president’s powers were modified several times and scaled down by Ta’ef in favor of the council of ministers and the prime minister, who became an essential part of the decision-making process. The prime minister’s signature became a prerequisite on all decrees except those pertaining to his own designation to the premiership, his and the government’s resignation. The Ta’ef also deprived the president from the power to dissolve Parliament and set a timeframe for the promulgation and signature of laws and decrees. Table 1 compares the president’s powers before and after the Ta’ef accord.

The powers of the speaker of parliament

Ta’ef consolidated the speaker’s position by increasing his term in office to four years from just one year, in one of the main modifications. Table 2 shows the speaker’s powers before and after the Ta’ef accord.

The powers of the prime minister

The Ta’ef accord left the selection of prime minister to the members of parliament, no longer the president’s choice, a fact that strengthened his position. The prime minister’s signature also became required on all decrees except those pertaining to his designation or resignation. Table 3 shows the prime minister’s powers before and after the Ta’ef accord.

Implementation of four marginal provisions

1-“Creation of a socioeconomic council for development: A socioeconomic council shall be created to insure that representatives of the various sectors participate in drafting the state’s socioeconomic policy and providing advice and proposals.” Decree 389 of January 12, 1995 established the Economic and Social Council while Decree 2012 dated December 30, 1999 appointed its members. The Council has yet to fulfill its mission and remains suspended following the expiration of its term without the appointment of new members.

2-“Abolish the mention of sect and denomination on the identity card.” In 1997, the government abolished the mention of sect and confession with the issue of new identity cards.

3- “To ensure the judiciary’s independence, a certain number of the Supreme Judicial Council shall be elected by the judicial body.” Implementation of this provision was delayed until 2002, when judges elected two members to the Supreme Judicial Council.

4- “A special law on the rules of trial [procedures] before the Supreme Council to try presidents and ministers shall be promulgated.” Article 80 stipulates the establishment of the Supreme Council in order to try presidents and ministers. The Council “consists of seven deputies elected by the Chamber of Deputies and of eight of the highest ranking Lebanese judges. A special law is to be issued to determine the procedures to be followed by this Council.” Although Article 80 was endorsed in 1927, the rules of procedures were stipulated by Trial Law 13, of August 18, 1990.

Non-implementation of seven essential provisions

1- “Efforts (will be made) to achieve comprehensive social justice through fiscal, economic, and social reform.” However, the public treasury suffers from deficit and poverty that affects many Lebanese.

2- “The Chamber of Deputies which is elected on the basis of equality between Muslims and Christians takes the appropriate measures to realize the abolition of political sectarianism. A national committee is to be formed, headed by the president of the republic and includes the speaker, the prime minister and leading political, intellectual and social figures. The tasks of this committee are to study and propose the means to ensure the abolition of sectarianism propose them to the Chamber of Deputies and the council of ministers and supervise the execution of the transitional plan.” In 1992, the first post-war Parliament elections were based on parity between Muslims and Christians, but the national committee is still pending formation and sectarianism still dominates  all aspects of Lebanese life.

3- “Abolish the sectarian representation base … excluding the top-level jobs and equivalent jobs which shall be shared equally by Christians and Muslims without allocating any particular job to any sect.” To date, sectarianism remains the basis for appointments and public posts. Grades five, four, three, two and one positions are still exclusive to certain confessions. For example, the posts of army commander, the Central Bank governor, the president of the Supreme Judicial Council, director general of the Ministry of Finance, director general of the Ministry of Education and the head of Central Inspection Department are all exclusive to Maronites. The posts of head of the Higher Council of Customs, director general of Ministry of Information, the president of the Council of the South, the director general of the Technical and Vocational Institute, public prosecutor of the treasury, head of the military tribunal, director general of the Ministry of Social Affairs and the director general of General Security are reserved for the Shia’a confession. Furthermore, the posts of head of the Council for Development and Reconstruction, the director general of Internal Security Forces, the general prosecutor, and the director general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are reserved for the Sunni confession.

A more dangerous occurrence is that some ministries are being ‘given’ to certain confessions. For example, the Ministry of Finance is reserved for the Sunni confession and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the Shia’a.

4-“Culturally, socially and economically-balanced development is a mainstay of the state’s unity and of the system’s stability.” This objective remains a mere slogan.

5- “Official, vocational, and technological education shall be reformed, strengthened, and developed. The conditions of the Lebanese University shall be reformed…” Since the promulgation of the Ta’ef accord, public schooling has been in constant regression while the Lebanese University has been reeling under the pressure of disorganization, a teacher surplus, an insufficient budget and an overcapacity in the literature and humanities departments.

6- “Adherence to the truce agreement concluded on 23 March 1949.” Consecutive governments have included provisions to support the resistance in the ministerial communiqués, breaching the truce, which is also violated by Israel’s repeated invasions and aggressions.

7- “With the election of the first Chamber of Deputies on a national, not sectarian, basis, a senate shall be formed and all the spiritual families shall be represented in it. The senate powers shall be confined to crucial issues.” Parliament has yet to be elected on a “national basis”; consequently, the birth of the senate has been delayed indefinitely.

Violation of eight essential provisions

1- “The number of members of the Chamber of Deputies shall be increased to 108, shared equally between Christians and Muslims.” Before Ta’ef, there were 99 deputies, 54 Christians and 45 Muslims. The number of MPs increased to 128, by 29 deputies instead of nine, as stipulated by Ta’ef.

2- “A constitutional council shall be created to interpret the constitution, observe the constitutionality of the laws and to settle disputes and contests emanating from presidential and parliamentary elections.” The Constitutional Council was created by law 250 of July 14, 1997 but was stripped from its power to interpret the Constitution.

3- “The armed forces intelligence shall be reorganized to serve military objectives exclusively.” However, as in the past, Army Intelligence is still involved in a number of cases and issues that are outside the military’s jurisdiction.

4-“Disbanding of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias shall be declared. The militias’ weapons are to be handed over to the state of Lebanon within a period of 6 months, once the National Accord Charter has been certified and the president elected…” Lebanese militias have been officially disbanded, yet only partially disarmed by the state. Furthermore, the state has yet to disarm Palestinian camps and organizations.

5-“The armed forces shall be unified, prepared, and trained in order that they may be able to shoulder their national responsibilities in confronting Israeli aggression.” The army has been unified and trained but remains under-equipped and consequently incapable of confronting the Israeli danger. Some believe in the saying that “Lebanon’s strength lies in its weakness” based on the fact that the army is incapable of fighting Israel in all cases.

6- “The problem of the Lebanese evacuees is to be solved, and the right of every Lebanese evicted since 1975 to return to the place from which he (she) was evicted shall be established. Legislations to guarantee this right and to insure the means of reconstruction shall be issued.” Most of the displaced, despite receiving state funds for reparations, have not returned to their homes, especially in villages such as Kabreeh in the Chouf and Kfar Matta in A’aley. The state has approved substantial amounts for people who were not displaced to reward their loyalty to certain political groups. Lebanon has so far spent an estimated USD 2.5 billion on the displaced at a time when only a quarter of evacuees have returned to their homes.

7-“All the information media shall be reorganized under the canopy of the law and within the framework of responsible freedom [of expression].” A regulating law was enacted to regulate the issuance of licenses, but instead is serving as an authorizing body for television and radio stations affiliated with political parties and confessions.

8- Clause Two of Article 49 states, “The president may not be re-elected until six years after the expiration of his last mandate… It is also not possible to elect judges, Grade One civil servants, or their equivalents in all public institutions to the Presidency during their term or office or within two years following the date of their resignation or their leaving office for whatever reason.” Since Ta’ef’s enactment, Article 49 has been violated several times, starting with the extension of late President Elias Hraoui’s mandate for three years; the amendment of the text to elect Emile Lahoud as president prior to his resignation from the post of army commander; the extension of Lahoud’s term and finally the election of President Michel Suleiman without the necessary constitutional amendments.

Parliamentary electoral law: multiple interpretations

The parliamentary electoral law dominated extensive deliberations during the drafting of the Ta’ef especially in terms of the form voting should take. Following are some major points of contention: Should Lebanon vote along a majority criterion or a proportional? What should the size of an electoral district be and should Lebanon be a single electoral constituency? What about the sizes of the muhafaza (governorate), the qada’a (district) and individual districts? Under the political reforms section, Ta’ef stipulates, “The electoral district shall be the governorate.” The text on electoral law stipulates, “Parliamentary elections shall be held in accordance with a new law on the basis of provinces and in the light of rules that guarantee common coexistence between the Lebanese, and that ensure the sound and efficient political representation of all the people’s factions and generations. This shall be done after reviewing the administrative division within the context of unity of the people, the land, and the institutions.”

Former Speaker Hussein al-Husseini, one of Ta’ef’s cornerstones, stresses that “the governorate” includes five main governorates: Beirut, Northern Lebanon, Mount Lebanon, the Beqa’a, and Southern Lebanon (excluding Nabatiyeh, which, in his opinion, is an administrative muhafaza).

The new administrative distribution, as cited in the accord, aims to create new administrative, not electoral, muhafazas. Meanwhile, other MPs who took part in the drafting process insist that “the governorate” cited in the Ta’ef consists of new muhafazas smaller than the present ones but larger than the qada’a. Drafters also discussed the creation of 12-15 muhafazas/electoral districts considering that the Ta’ef accord cites the administrative division in the clause on electoral law to emphasize the link between the two issues.

The state has adopted multiple electoral laws since the enactment of Ta’ef. In 1992, the governorate acted as an electoral district in all muhafazas except Mount Lebanon, where voting was based on the qada’a. In 2009, the qada’a criterion was adopted as stipulated by the 1960 electoral law after Beirut was divided into three constituencies.

Ambiguous provisions and clauses that require revision or reinterpretation

The Ta’ef accord has a number of texts and clauses that need clarification, amendment or a permanent arbitrator – a role Syria played for many years – to resolve conflicts. Some of the ambiguous texts in the pre-Ta’ef constitution were modified by the accord without being clarified. These include:

_- Article 58 (prior to modification by Ta’ef) states, “…The president may render executable any project which has previously been declared urgent by the government by the decree of transmission taken on the favorable advice of the Council of Ministers, and on which the Chamber of Deputies has not adjudicated within the forty days following its communication to the Assembly.”

The Ta’ef Accord amended the article to read: “Every Bill deemed urgent by the Council of Ministers and in which this urgency is indicated in the decree of transmission to the Chamber of Deputies may be issued by the president within forty days following its communication to the Chamber, after including it on the agenda of a general meeting, reading it aloud before the Chamber and after the expiration of the time limit…”

The article fails to specify  when the 40-day grace period goes into effect. As a result, if the speaker abstains from listing draft bills on Parliament’s agenda, the 40-day grace period cannot officially start until he does. Such a loophole gives the speaker the chance to impede the work of the government by not discussing draft bills in Parliament and eventually vote on them. As long as Parliament has not endorsed these bills, neither the president nor the government can promulgate them pending the start of the grace period.

_- Clause Six of Article 64 of the Constitution states, “He [the prime minister] calls the Council of Ministers into session and sets its agenda, and he informs the president and the ministers beforehand of the subjects included on the agenda and of the urgent subjects that will be discussed.” Is this a mere formality on the part of the prime minister? Does the president have the right to object to the agenda’s contents? If so, is the prime minister then required by law to cancel some of the items that the president opposed?

There are divergent interpretations to Clause Six with some considering the contents of agenda to require the president’s approval. Others deem such approval unnecessary and, if the president objects to some of its contents, he can preside over the cabinet session in which these topics are to be discussed.

Twenty years after the Ta’ef accord, the state should allow the implementation of some of its essential provisions and reconsider some of stipulations that have been implemented, especially in relation to the president’s jurisdiction. Meanwhile, the zua’ama of the Sunni confession are holding on to what has been achieved so far, since the Ta’ef transferred the powers of the president to the council of ministers, which is to encompass all confessions. At this point, it is worth asking a few questions about the constitutionality of the council of ministers: If a confession is not represented in cabinet, would the council of ministers remain legitimate? Would it still be entitled to the powers awarded to it by the Ta’ef? Or should it be considered defunct even if it consists of the two-thirds majority required to form a government? If so, how should the previous government under Prime Minister Fouad Saniora be defined after the resignation of the Shia’a ministers?

The Ta’ef accord will remain one of the most essential and debated topics in Lebanon, especially during tumultuous periods. However, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to amend it. In conclusion, what has been implemented so far does not exceed four marginal issues; what has yet to be implemented are seven essential provisions and what has been violated are eight pivotal issues. The de facto situation now is that Ta’ef consolidated the power of the speaker of parliament and the prime minister at the expense of the president’s.

The 2008 Doha agreement is a confirmation that the zua’ama of Lebanon had no intention to implement Ta’ef. These leaders have violated the Constitution by reintroducing the 1960 parliamentary electoral law and putting Lebanon on a path of continuous crises and threats of civil wars.

The stubborn adherence of some politicians to the accord, practically indicates an insistence to preserve the power of the Sunni za’im without awarding a larger share to the Shia’a and Maronite zua’ama and without taking into account the other provisions under Ta’ef. Calls by others for the implementation of the Ta’ef accord are basically calls to amend it in order to recover the powers of the president and to give a larger share to the Shia’a zua’ama without implementing other stipulations.

The 2009 parliamentary elections further confirmed that talk on state building is mere rhetoric. In the end each confession voted for its zai’m and each za’im ‘partitioned’ a geographical area and stakes in both the private and public sectors. These leaders’ competition for power is essentially, and sometimes structurally, linked to external forces and interests.

Therefore, one can argue that the Ta’ef accord has ended, and perhaps it was over long before it even started.

Ta’ef and Syria

Syria played an essential role in the endorsement of the Ta’ef Accord while enjoying a large military presence in the country and strong political influence on Muslim parties and the zua’ama of Muslim confessions. Ta’ef included clauses pertaining to the Syrian military presence in Lebanon and on bilateral relations. However, Syria was unwilling to implement or unable to allow the implementation of these stipulations, and the text related to the Syrian presence was drafted in an ambiguous manner giving Syria a chance to be noncommittal.

Ta’ef stipulates, “Considering that the objective of the state of Lebanon is to spread its authority over all the Lebanese territories through its own forces, represented primarily by the internal security forces, and in view of the fraternal relations binding Syria to Lebanon, the Syrian forces shall thankfully assist the forces of the legitimate Lebanese government to spread the authority of the state of Lebanon within a set period of no more than two years, beginning with ratification of the national accord charter, election of the president of the republic, formation of the national accord cabinet, and approval of the political reforms constitutionally. At the end of this period, the two governments — the Syrian Government and the Lebanese National Accord Government — shall decide to redeploy the Syrian forces in Al-Beqa’a area from Dahr al-Baydar to the Hammana-al-Mudayrij-’Ayn Darah line, and if necessary, at other points to be determined by a joint Lebanese-Syrian military committee. An agreement shall also be concluded by the two governments to determine the strength and duration of the presence of Syrian forces in the above-mentioned area and to define these forces’ relationship with the Lebanese state authorities where the forces exist. The Arab Tripartite Committee is prepared to assist the two states, if they so wish, to develop this agreement.”

Syria took the stand that the two-year grace period will not take effect before the comprehensive constitutional endorsement of political reforms. However, after September 1990, when certain minor steps were taken in accordance with the accord,

Syria failed to withdraw its forces in September 1992, reneging on its commitment under Ta’ef. It claimed that since not all the reforms have been ratified the grace period has not started.

Syria maintained its military presence in Lebanon until its complete withdrawal in 2005, due to international pressure and resolutions following the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.