Ref: 25/2006

Date:  20 June 2006

PCHR Publishes a New Study on the PLC’s Performance during its First Decade in Operation

PCHR has published a study entitled “The Palestinian Legislative Council: 10 Years of the Absence of Accountability”.  The study, which is the first of its kind, analyzes and evaluates the performance of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) during its first decade in operation (1996–2006), and examines whether it has succeeded in promoting the principles of the separation of powers, transparency and accountability, as a foundation for its relations with the other authorities, particularly the executive.  For this purpose, the study attempts to discuss the PLC in its theoretical, regional and historical contexts.  The study then discusses the political and institutional context of the PLC, before examining its performance at the levels of legislation, accountability and monitoring.  The study depends on a number of interviews with PLC members, conducted by PCHR in the context of its efforts to observe the PLC’s performance during various periods.  It also refers to news items published on the PLC in local newspapers, as well as a number of other relevant studies and articles. 

The study concludes that the PLC, like other Arab parliaments, does not represent all political groups in Palestinian society.  This dominant nature of the PLC has led to its failure to carry out the main duty for which it was elected; that is, the enforcement of a constitutional regime during the Interim Period of the Oslo Accords, to regulate relations among the various powers, and between these powers and society, as prescribed in article 3 of the Election Law of 1995.  The PLC also failed to obligate the executive to present the annual general budget on time and to implement the decisions it has taken to cope with failures in the economic, financial, legal, social and political sectors.  These failures impacted the possibility of the emergence of a regime based on the separation of powers and the rule of law, and established a semi-autocratic regime, which was institutionalized in the period between 1994 and 1996. 

The study further concludes that the PLC, in spite of monitoring mechanisms (for example, the lack of confidence voting), which can force the executive to act in accordance with the rule of law and the separation of powers, failed to use these mechanisms to ensure essential reforms in the structure of the semi-autocratic regime.  The study attributes this failure to several reasons, including: the PLC’s political structure; the network of common interests between some PLC members and executive officials; and the political culture which is not committed to democratic values. 

Moreover, the study emphasizes that the PLC, with the end of the Interim Period in May 1999, which came and went without holding new parliamentary elections, lost the main source of its legitimacy (the people), and its identity as an elected legislative entity representing the people’s will became questionable.  This lack of legitimacy impacted the PLC’s relations with the executive and pushed it to adhere to the executive as the main source for its legitimacy and a protector of its existence. 

The PLC, the study argues, did not seize the historical opportunity, which was presented during the al-Aqsa Intifada, to make qualitative reform in Palestinian political life and revive its role in monitoring and steering the executive’s performance.  This was particularly relevant during the first two years of the Intifada (2000–2002), which saw much external pressure (Israeli and US) on the Palestinian National Authority to reform its institutions.  Although such pressure encouraged the PLC to attempt to free itself from the executive’s dominance, as expressed in the reform initiative presented by it in May 2002, that attempt was soon undermined, when the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat succeeded in maintaining his de facto semi-autocratic regime (including the misuse of public authority in the famous “cement case” and the PLC’s failure to react to offenses committed by some ministers) in the period between 2002 and 2004.

So, the PLC had to wait for Arafat’s death in November 2003 to effectively move towards holding local, presidential and legislative elections, as a means of traditional reform, and consequently, establishing state institutions which would be elected transparently and in accordance with the rule of law.  In this context, the PLC amended the electoral law of 1995, passing a new law in 2005.  This new electoral law, which adopts the mixed electoral system (50% for proportional majority {constituencies} and 50% for proportional representation {electoral lists}), increases the number of PLC’s members to 132, equally divided between the two mechanisms of elections.  Thus, the new law constitutes a crucial turning point, as it adopts the mixed electoral system, contrary to the 1995 electoral law, which was based on the proportional majority and deprived many political factions of participating in the 1996 legislative elections.  The new law allowed all nationalist and Islamic factions, which do not enjoy wide support, excluding Islamic Jihad, to participate in the 2006 legislative elections.  These factions won many seats at the PLC.  The study asserts that the results of these elections surprised all observers, as Hamas won 74 seats, while the Fatah movement, the main competitor to Hamas and the faction that occupied the majority of seats during the first decade of the PLC’s age, won 45 seats.  The other seats were won by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (3 seats); the Third Way (two seats); the Alternative (2 seats); Independent Palestine (2 seats), and independents (4 seats). 

The study emphasizes that the emergence of Hamas and other factions as political powers other than Fatah at the PLC may put an end to the dominant nature of the PLC, and the decade of dominance by one faction (Fatah) over the main state entity (the parliament).  This change will inevitably create political movement at the PLC and reactivate it to assume its responsibilities of legislation, monitoring and accountability.  Even though such development may lead to democratic reform in the Palestinian political regime, it will not reform this political regime into a liberal one, as this issue has become largely linked with the nature of the relations between the ruling party (Hamas) and Palestinian society, and whether the essence of these relations is based on Islamic principles (as set out in Hamas’ platform) or other principles.