Could Libya's Old Constitution Solve Its Current Issues ?

In an article published on The National Interest on 4 July, Edward P. Joseph discusses Libya’s political stalemate, focusing most particularly on the issue of drafting a constitution. The author points out that while foreign powers brand the organisation of elections as the solution to Libya’s political crisis, the country still lacks a firm and solid constitutional basis to organize such elections in the first place and govern, in the second place. Joseph recounts the difficulties encountered to push forward a draft constitution since 2014, and goes on to argue that the solution to this issue could be to formally readopt Libya’s “old” Constitution, Modern Libya’s first constitution, which was originally drafted in 1951 and amended in 1963. The author argues that this Constitution served well Libya until General Qaddafi took the power, and that it could serve well in the present circumstances. The strengths of this Constitution would be its capacity to appease the divisions between Libya’s three main regions through a form of union, and its proposition of a “Sovereign Council”, the author points out.Click here to read more.