‘Sharia will not be sole source of law in new Qatari Constitution’

Sharia law will not be the sole source of law when Qatar’s new constitution comes into force, a legal consultant said.

The role of Sharia was discussed in a heated debate during the bill’s drafting process, said Jamal Yahya, an Egyptian constitutionalist and legal consultant for the Qatari Government.

“According to Article 2, the new constitution is inspired by Sharia and not based on it. It says that Sharia is one of the fundamental sources of the legislation, but not the only one.

“This leaves the door open for other laws to come into the picture. But to achieve this, we had to go through long discussions,” Yahya told Gulf News.

The dispute erupted as a strong group in the Commission for the Constitutional Draft wanted Sharia law to be the only source of law, Yahya said. A more moderate trend, however, finally prevailed, he said.

In April 2003, 96.6 per cent of Qataris voted in favour of a permanent constitution to replace the provisional constitution of 1970. It is set to come into force on June 7.

He said in the future the Constitution could be further elaborated or integrated with inputs from other legislations in areas where the Sharia does not provide a legal framework.

He said the charter does not mention what these other sources would be.

Yahya said the charter, which provided for parliamentary elections and more women’s rights, was advanced.

“The new constitution provides for parliamentary elections and gender equality. It is one of the most modern of the Arab world,” he said.

Yahya has helped draft the new charter over the past two years, following a request by the Commission for the Constitutional Draft set up by the Qatari Emir, His Highness Shaikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani.

The most important provision of the new charter, Yahya said, was the establishment of a partially elected parliamentary chamber.

“The constitution provides that 30 out of 45 members of parliament are elected by the people, while the rest are nominated by the Emir.

“There is a strong focus of the charter on people’s participation in decision-making and power management. This represents an important change of mindset for the country’s leadership,” he said.

The constitutionalist said the new charter would not bring any abrupt change into Qatar’s society.

“The charter does not bring any radical changes that would have shocked society ... it is a step forward in modernising the country but not the last one,” he said. Yahya said the charter focused on preserving the Arab-Islamic features of society while trying to modernise it.

“The constitution has a liberal trend, but in spite of that it is about preserving public property, equality between public and private sector as well as electing a parliamentary chamber but only partially,” he said.

At a glance

Salient features of the charter