Libyan Parliament to Introduce Law Barring Qaddafi-Regime Officials from Office

Photo Credit: Libiya Al-Wataniya

A committee in Libya’s Parliament is expected this week to introduce a draft “Political Isolation Law” barring former members of Qaddafi’s regime from participating in the country’s political process.  One hundred and twenty five of the General National Congress’s (GNC) 200 members voted in late December to empower a parliamentary committee to finalize the law’s details and bring it before the GNC for a final vote.  Speaking on behalf of the group of parliamentarians who called for the draft law,  Suliman Gajama, the independent representative for Yefren, said, “We are asking that those who have been involved in the bloodshed in Libya, with the corruption, not be allowed to be represented in the government, and we want to include this in our future constitution or by laws.”  In a statement issued by disparate members of the GNC calling for the law, it charged that “anyone who participated in the destruction can not in any way be a tool for rebuild the state, and it is unimaginable that anyone who took part in the corruption of the social, political and economic life of Libya could ever be a cause for reform.”

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the drafting committee to carefully weigh the need for transparency when determining which positions and past actions warrant exclusion from public office, warning that the use of vague terminology could threaten Libya’s process of transitional justice.  Fred Abrahams, a special adviser to HRW, stressed, “After decades of dictatorship and corruption, Libyans understandably want to ensure that their new leaders do not include people who were involved in past abuse…But bans on public office and senior positions should be based on provable misdeeds, and not a general association with the former regime.”