BEIRUT: The Constitutional Council will not fall into a vacuum if the term allotted to its members expires before the election of a president, the body’s head said Friday. Judge Issam Sleiman stressed that the council’s bylaws allowed its members to remain in their posts until a successor is appointed and sworn in.
“The fourth article of the bylaws of the Constitutional Council states that any member of the body whose term has expired remains in his post until a successor is appointed and takes an oath before the president,” Sleiman told The Daily Star.
“We are the only state institution that has bylaws which state that its members can carry on with their duties [after their term ends],” Sleiman added.
Sleiman Wednesday sent a letter to Prime Minister Tammam Salam’s office noting that the six-year term of the members of the council, including its president, would end on June 5.
The letter said the period to submit candidacies to the council should open 90 days before the current term of the body expires. The call for candidates was opened Friday and will expire in a month.
But while the government has been exercising the powers of the president since the country’s top post became vacant last May, new members appointed to the Constitutional Council cannot begin their work until they make an oath before the president.
Established in July 1994, the 10-member council looks into the constitutionality of challenged laws and gives a ruling with respect to challenges submitted against the election of the president or speaker and also parliamentary polls.
Five members of the council are elected by Parliament and the other five appointed by the Cabinet.
Once elected and appointed, the 10 members select a president and deputy for the council.
Sleiman stressed the fact that council members could remain in their posts if no successor was elected after their terms expired did not reflect a masked extension of their mandate, but instead a strict adherence to the body’s bylaws.
Extending the term of political and security officials has become a norm in Lebanon recently.
Parliament extended its term twice over the past two years, citing deteriorating security among other reasons.
In summer 2013, then caretaker Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn extended the term of Army chief Gen. Jean Kahwagi for two years after he was supposed to retire that year.
Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk said last month that Kahwagi’s term would be extended again and that the same would apply for other top security officials whose terms expire this year as long as a president is not elected.
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