Speaking purely for myself, I would recommend that they adopt 4, 6, 7, and 8 on Sandy's list. I'm agnostic on 5. 3 seems undesirable, while 1 doesn't make sense in a society with a different political structure from the US (however, I would retain the basic idea of supermajority requirements for amendments). Some version of 7 is particularly desirable in a society where some religoius groups might otherwise oppress others. According to some news reports, Iraqi Shiite leaders actually recongize this point and do want a substantial degree of Church-state separation.
Sandy doesn't mention it, but I think that the Iraqis would also be wise to adopt a system of decentralized federalism, given that there are many minority groups (e.g. - the Kurds), which are regionally concentrated. Allowing each group to in effect rule its own federal enclave reduces the chance of ethnic oppression and diminishes the likelihood of interethnic violence. For this and other reasons, Iraq might actual benefit from adopting a higher degree of decentralization than exists under the US constitution. Bicameralism and the veto are also relevant in this context, because they effectively create a supermajority requirement for adopting legislation. This is of considerable value in a highly divided society as it reduces the chance of adopting laws that benefit one ethnic or other faction at the expense of others. Obviously, it is possible that there are other supermajority mechanisms that would work better in Iraq than bicameralism/veto but this one is at least a reasonably good model. I do agree with Sandy's implied point that there are elements of the US constitution that are archaic and/or undesirable for other reasons. But I don't think there are as many such provisions as he believes. On Tue, 30 Sep 2003, Sanford Levinson wrote: > A news story today indicates that some Iraqis are suggesting that it will > take up to a year to negotiate a new constitution, whereas the > Administration seems to suggest that six months will be enough. For all of > our ostensible expertise on constitutional issues, do we, as American > constitutional lawyers (who probably, as an empirical matter, have not > engaged in the close study of any non-American constitutional system), have > anything relevant to say about the optimal amount of time a remarkably > divided, dysfunctional society like Iraq should be expected to take to > draft a new constitution? And, of course, the more volatile question is > whether we, as American constitutional lawyers, have anything relevant to > say about what the new constitution should say. Riding several of my own > hobbyhorses, I'd be interested in knowing how many people on the list would > advise (or even insist that) the Iraqis adopt the following features of our > constitution: > > 1) Article V > 2) life tenure for judges (who will be presumed to have the power of > judicial review) > 3) the electoral college > 4) bicameralism plus a presidential veto > 5) a right to bear arms > 6) capital punishment as a constitutionally legitimate punishment (see > Amendments V, XIV) > 7) the prohibition of an established religion > 8) toleration of seditious and/or religious/ethnic "hate speech" > > sandy >
