Iraq's top court rules against Kurdistan Region parliament minority seats
Iraq’s Federal Court convened on Wednesday to issue its verdict on several cases concerning the Kurdistan Region, including the case regarding Erbil’s election law and the one related to the budget disputes between Baghdad and Erbil.
The court ruled that the Region’s election law regarding the 11 minority quota seats are “unconstitutional.”
“The Kurdistan Parliament consists of one hundred members,” read the federal court’s verdict, rejecting the legitimacy of the 11 seats reserved to minorities until today.
Two politicians from the Kurdistan Patriotic Union (PUK) and a Christian party in Sulaimani have filed two lawsuits against the Kurdistan Region’s election law, which was passed in 1992 and last amended in 2013, separately, to the Iraqi federal court. The court is treating both as one case due to their similarity.
The lawsuits claimed that several articles of the Kurdish election law were unconstitutional, including Article 36 which stipulates that 11 of the legislature’s 111 seats are dedicated to minorities under a quota system. In accordance with this law, Turkmens have five seats, Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Syriacs have five, and Armenians have one.
The court also ruled that Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) will replace the Kurdistan Region’s electoral commission to manage the Region’s elections.
The IHEC was tasked with carrying out the poll after Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court in late May ruled that the Kurdistan Parliament’s decision to extend its term by an additional year was unconstitutional. The court’s ruling meant the parliament could not activate the regional election commission so the federal one had to step in.
In accordance with Wednesday’s ruling, IHEC will replace the regional commission in supervising the Region’s elections, and will maintain its role until a newly elected parliament will form a new regional commission.
In another verdict, the top court ruled that Article 9 of the Region’s election law that states the Kurdistan Region consists of one electoral constituency is “unconstitutional,” stating that the Region must be divided into “at least four electoral constituencies.”
Additionally, the phrasing of an article regarding women’s quota seats was also ruled unconstitutional by the federal court. The article originally stated that each political party must present “at least three women” as candidates for the elections.
KRG oil revenues, civil servant salaries
On the issue of oil revenues, Iraq’s top court ruled that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) must hand over all the oil and non-oil revenues to Baghdad.
The court mandated that both the KRG and the federal government “nationalize” the salaries of the Region’s employees, transferring the responsibility of paying the Kurdistan Region’s civil servants from Erbil to Baghdad.
The court obliged the Prime Minister of the federal government and his counterpart in the Kurdistan Region, “to nationalize the salaries of all employees of ministries, governorates, and non-ministerial entities, as well as all employees of other entities, retirees, and beneficiaries of the social protection network in government banks, deducting from the Region's share according to the budget law for this year and the coming years.”
Iraq passed its highly contentious budget bill in June for the years 2023, 2024, and 2025, of which the Kurdistan Region's share is 12.6 percent.
The KRG has said that it needs over 900 billion dinars (about $686 million) monthly to cover its payroll, but with its oil exports through Turkey halted since March, it does not have the funds. In September, Erbil and Baghdad struck a deal that saw the federal government agree to loan the KRG 2.1 trillion Iraqi dinars in three 700-billion-dollar (about $534 million) installments, to cover the salaries of the months of September, October, and November.
The court also mandated the KRG’s finance ministry to submit a breakdown of the monthly budget for the salaries of the Region’s employees to the federal ministry of finance.
The ruling on the KRG’s civil servant salaries “is final and binding,” according to the court.