Chapter 9, Part 2: Amending the Constitution for al-Quwatli's Second Term

Section One
The Amendment of the Constitution

President Shukri al-Quwatli was elected President of the Republic in August 1943. Under the 1930 constitution the presidential term was five years, ending by law in August 1948. This constitution contained a categorical provision, Article 68, forbidding the re-election of the President until five years had passed from the end of his first term. But he and his supporters decided to amend the constitution so as to return him to the highest office a second time.

Article 108 of the constitution required those wishing to amend it to submit the request in an ordinary session, signed by a third of the members of the Chamber of Deputies, or at the request of the President of the Republic himself in agreement with the Council of Ministers. The request would be put to the Chamber of Deputies; if two thirds of its members approved it, its consideration was permitted and the decision on its substance was postponed to the next ordinary session; and if two thirds of the members voted for the amendment in that session, it was adopted and became an enforceable part of the constitution.

When the majority sounded us out about its wish to amend the constitution, we told them: we have no candidate of our own to put forward, and we consider President al-Quwatli the best candidate on the political scene. So we have no objection to him personally. But we believe that the principle of amending the constitution for the sake of one person is wrong in the present circumstances. Dangers were closing in on Palestine and on us, the whole region was on a knife's edge, and our independence was a newborn hardly more than a year old, so it was not right to go ahead with amending the constitution for one person, however high his standing. President al-Quwatli could take part in running political affairs while sitting at home.. But the insistence on the amendment was fierce and admitted no bargaining or truce.. We were taken by surprise by a petition signed by 89 deputies, plus six minister-deputies, bringing the number of signatories to 95.. It was submitted to the presidency of the Chamber at the session of 11 November 1947. This number exceeded the two thirds of the members of the Chamber required by the constitution..

The secretary read it out as though whips were lashing his back and hurrying him through the reading..

It caught our attention that the amendment request provided for the President of the Republic to be elected by universal suffrage in a single stage.

But the Chamber did not adopt the principle of universal suffrage because of its dangers, and kept the election of the President within the competence of the Chamber of Deputies, to limit the possibilities of fraud. As soon as the secretary of the Chamber had finished reading the deputies' petition and the bill submitted by the government, the deputy speaker of the Chamber, Muhammad al-Ayish, gathered up his papers and made to rise, wishing to allow no room for any debate.. But a number of opposition deputies asked to speak, and he refused to let them. Then he gave the floor to the government deputies.. who set about attacking us with an insolence no convention could justify, merely because we had demanded our constitutional right to state our opinion on the petition so that the people who had elected us only three months earlier could hear it!! Akram al-Hourani said at the next session:

"We were prevented from speaking at the previous session, and at this session too we are denied the right to state our opinion".. This was in reply to a proposal by one of the government deputies, Adil al-Ajlani, to close the debate, that is, to shut the door on all discussion of the matter. Al-Hourani added: "If this proposal is adopted and we are prevented from stating our opinion, we are not prepared to remain in this Chamber". The deputy speaker did not give him the floor.. Hani al-Siba'i (of our Constitutional Bloc) asked to speak, saying that the rules of procedure provide for five speakers in favor and five against, but he too was prevented from speaking. Maarouf al-Dawalibi tried to speak and was not allowed.. He said, "I record my objection". Dr. al-Dawalibi was known for his calm until he was provoked.. and then he would turn into a raging volcano.. In his normal state he combined the logic of Roman law, in which he specialized, with the tolerance of Islamic law, of which he was counted among the most prominent forward-looking men.

Latif Ghanima (of our bloc) also exploded, saying: I demand that the law and the rules be applied. Al-Ayish shouted at him: "I forbid you to speak. Either you keep quiet or I will have you put out of the Chamber..".[1] And the President declared the debate on the matter closed.. This meant that a matter as grave as amending the constitution for one person would be done in secret and concealment, like a drug-smuggling operation whose perpetrators want it kept from the ears of those concerned.

Then I lost control of my nerves. I got up from my seat and rushed to the rostrum without permission, and began to speak about this ugly violation.. At that the "government toughs" fell upon me, and a number of opposition deputies sprang to my aid.. and it came to blows.

So the deputy speaker decided to adjourn the session. But the message I had wanted to send to the people reached its ears. Hani al-Siba'i (of our bloc) recorded at the next session "our group's protest against this" shameful "conduct"..

In this period the Security Council resolution on the establishment of the "state" of Israel was issued, and an atmosphere of frustration and gloom settled over the Arabs.. especially after the battles of the Salvation Army (in which I had volunteered along with a number of deputies, although we did not go, for reasons I will not mention here) and the disastrous defeats suffered by the Arab armies. It became necessary to reassess positions and to work to close ranks and gather the people's forces in the face of an anxious present and a gloomy future.

In our opposition Constitutional group we took the decision to vote for the amendment of the constitution, because it was a fait accompli whether we liked it or not, and continuing our opposition would have been no more than recording a stand of principle, useless in such delicate circumstances.

Besides, our voting for al-Quwatli might free him from the clutches of those around him and convince him that he was "the President of the country", not "the President of the group that elected him alone".

Among this group was a "fascist party" counted as the President's own, which killed a law student from Hama in Martyrs' Square in Damascus, in broad daylight, and no one dared to testify before the courts.. Indeed, the dean of the Faculty of Law did not dare to deliver his eulogy, so he entrusted the task to me. I eulogized him from the balcony of the Chamber of Deputies, accompanied his coffin to his town in the name of the Faculty of Law, and eulogized him again at his grave.. And his blood was shed in vain.. on the altar of presidential ambitions.. The head of this party was a member of the Chamber of Deputies. Once he sat next to me at a session, with a submachine gun at his back under his jacket.. I put my hand on it to receive its blessing!.. and he looked at me proudly. One of his supporters told me that he did not know how to use it.

Acting on the group's decision, I agreed to the amendment in the constitutional committee, after we had rid it of the flaw of direct election, so as to spare the qa'immaqams (today the mintaqas) and the heads of nahiyas the troubles of fraud and of corrupting the people's morals, and we made it the prerogative of the Chamber of Deputies.. Dr. Muhammad al-Sarraj (the educated deputy for the city of Hama)[2] was among the strongest supporters of this approach, as he did not want the people exposed to the humiliations of fraud and pressure, especially in the villages.[3] But we continued to regard the amendment of the constitution as the first nail in the coffin of parliamentary life, to which the people had shown their attachment in the last elections.. and we decided to boycott the oath session.

One writer asked why we boycotted the session at which the President of the Republic took the constitutional oath, and argued that "if we had cared about democracy we would have taken a stand against amending the constitution from the start, and it would have been in our power to block the petition submitted to the Chamber to amend the constitution".[4]

He accuses us of having gone back on our position "in exchange for four ministerial portfolios in the cabinet to be formed after the President took up his constitutional duties, namely Defense, Interior, Foreign Affairs and Economy.. But al-Quwatli, who made the deal with the People's Party, told none of the leaders of the National Party about it, and began to back out of it when he charged Jamil Mardam with the contacts to prepare a national cabinet.. Mardam refused to give the People's Party more than one ministry.. So the party decided to boycott the cabinet and to boycott the session at which the President took his oath, so as to disown its approval of the constitutional amendment and lay this grave historic responsibility on the President of the Republic and the National Party".

No statement could be more of an offense against fairness and truth than this unjust one.. which has nothing to support it. To clarify the matter, I say that our party decided to vote for President al-Quwatli so that he could rest assured of the parliamentary unanimity he cared so much about, and in that way we would have freed him from the yoke of his "supporters".. Then he could act with more freedom.. than a party president.

As for the reason we boycotted the oath session, we explained it to public opinion in the petition we submitted to the Chamber of Deputies on 16 August, in which we said that we "will refrain from attending the session of 17 August 1948 in protest at the violation of the constitution by the failure to call the Chamber of Deputies to an extraordinary session in accordance with the request submitted by 87 deputies under paragraph 3 of Article 45 of the constitution, and we asked that the petition be read out and recorded in the minutes of the session".

Among the reasons given for calling an extraordinary session was "that the request rests on very important grounds. The country was in a state of armed intervention in Palestine, and this intervention was surrounded by political and international circumstances requiring national and financial effort, and there is no situation that calls for cooperation between the legislative and executive powers as much as this situation requires and imposes it. The principle is that the legislative power should be able to carry out its duties at all times".[5]

So the issue was a disagreement with the head of the executive power over the violation of the constitution, and not "bargaining over four ministerial portfolios".

At this session Rushdi al-Kikhya spoke at length.. Among the things he said:

"When the Arab governments agreed to fight the battles of Palestine, the opposition in this Chamber was the first to rush to support the government and grant it the power to issue exceptional laws.. In that way we showed our good faith at that hour, and we also agreed to the idea of sharing power put forward by our brother Sabri al-Asali, that the National Party should have three ministers, the opposition three and the independents three, out of our wish to create a strong government around which all classes of the nation could rally.. So it cannot be said that we refused to share with you and to bear responsibility for saving Palestine.. And the government in its present state cannot carry the burdens laid on it, because of the lack of harmony and cohesion among its members.."[6]

I too spoke at this session, and commented on the cabinet's statement, saying: "The government said that the Arabs would defend lofty principles and stand, with their faith and the strength of their right, against tyranny and aggression whoever their supporters might be, and would make every sacrifice for the independence of Palestine..

But the government did not stand up to the supporters of tyranny and aggression, because it concentrated its foreign policy in a single direction (America and its allies) and did not resort to a policy of bargaining.. The disaster of Palestine is a disaster beside which the disaster of al-Andalus counts for nothing, and it obliges the government to put far more into averting it than it has, and there is not a single citizen who believes the government is serious about fighting Zionism.. And the government said of domestic policy: "that it will take care to apply the constitution in letter and spirit, so that citizens feel they are equal in rights and duties".

I say to the government that it has failed miserably, because the policy it follows has divided the nation in two: one part to which neither law nor order is applied, which spreads corruption in the land with no one to watch over it, commits mortal sins and enjoys the fruits of string-pulling and intercession; and another part that is wronged and persecuted because it is weak and has no one to support it.. If it knocks at the doors of those in authority with a complaint, it is told: go away, you are the wicked wrongdoer.

And since the Minister of Defense (Ahmad al-Sharabati) has made a statement on the reasons for his resignation and referred in it to secret reports, I ask that a committee of inquiry be formed from the members of this Chamber, in the interest of the nation and in his own interest.."

Everyone knows that President al-Quwatli enjoyed only a few months of his second presidency, because Husni al-Za'im, the commander of his army, overthrew him and the whole regime.. on the pretext of "the violation of the constitution and the state of confusion, laxity, chaos, treachery and theft the country had come to..", as the coup's communiqué put it.

And a stage of unknown features opened, a stage of coups whose number we do not know, nor the aims of those who carried them out, except by inference and conjecture.

Endnotes:

[1] The same session, p. 171.

[2] Dr. al-Sarraj had both a Western and an Arab education. He obtained a doctorate in law from the French University of Montpellier and, after the 1936 treaty with France, was appointed director general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He represented his city in the Chamber of Deputies most honorably.. and died as honorable men die, leaving their families and friends nothing but sorrow and tears.

[3] The constitutional committee was made up of:
Hani al-Siba'i, chairman, Latif Ghanima, Adnan al-Atassi, AbdulWahab Homad, Rizqallah Antaki (these five of the newly formed People's Party), and Sabri al-Asali, Dr. Muhammad al-Sarraj and Ibrahim Taifour (the last two independents).
The government was represented at the session by Dr. Muhsin al-Barazi, Minister of the Interior, and the committee decided unanimously to amend Article 68 and Article 85 of the constitution.
Ahmad Qanbar made a speech on behalf of the Constitutional Bloc (the future People's Party), conveying its unanimous support for the decision of the constitutional committee, at a time when we stood on the threshold of a new era to which the nation aspired for a comprehensive reform of our political, economic and social life.

[4] Walid al-Muallem, Syria 1918-1958, p. 88.

[5] See the text of the memorandum and the names of its thirty signatories in the minutes of the session of 28 August 1948, the second session of the third extraordinary term.

[6] P. 565.