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Publications: Legislature
 Executive Summary Introduction The Egyptian Case
The Government’s and Parliament’s Role
in the Legislative Process
The Parliament’s Legislative Activity during the
Sixth Legislative Phase (1990-1995)
The Parliament’s Legislative Activity in the
Seventh Legislative Phase (1995-2000)
Evaluating the Parliament’s Legislative Performance during the Study’s Duration
The Lebanese Case
The Legislative Power’s Composition
Assessment of the Lebanese Parliament’s Legislative Performance
The Kuwaiti Case
An Overview of the Relationship between Powers in the Kuwaiti Constitution
The Parliament’s Situation in the Kuwaiti Political System
The Decree on Women’s Political Rights as Part of
The Political Struggle between the Parliament and the Government
The Moroccan Case
The First Parliamentary Experience (1963-1965)
The Legislative Yield of the Third and Fourth Parliamentary Sessions (1977-1984), (1984-1992)
The Field and Limits of the Moroccan Parliament’s Jurisdictions
The Yemeni Case
The Nature of the Regime or the Political System in the Yemeni Republic
The First Parliamentary Council after Unification
The Second Council (1993-1997)
The 1997 Parliament
Conclusion
Notes
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Symposium on Arab Parliamentary Development Beirut, 16 - 18 May 2000 by Dr. Azza Wehbe Under the supervision of The Lebanese Center for Policy Studies (LCPS) Executive Summary: This study aims at analyzing the legislative performance of Arab Parliaments by focusing on the experiences of five countries, Egypt, Lebanon, Kuwait, Morocco and Yemen. The study covers the period between 1990- 2000 since international and regional transformations that took place in the last decade have left a very significant impact on the Arab democratic process in general and the Arab Legislatures in particular. Based on the constitutions of the five countries and the bylaws of their respective parliaments, the paper discusses the roles of executive and legislative authorities in the legislative process. It highlights the dominant role of the executive by showing the existing gap between the constitutional text and the practice of legislation over the last decade. The study sheds the light on the different political, economic and social contexts, within which these parliaments operate, and which tend to affect, positively or negatively, the various functions of legislatures. Beside the societal context, the attitudes and affiliations of the various political and social forces represented within the parliament are considered as an additional independent variable affecting the legislating performance of parliaments. In this context, this paper tried to monitor the positions of these forces in order to assess their impact on the legislative process. The paper then presents the various efforts and initiatives to improve the performance of the legislative function of parliaments. For example, the paper reviewed the Lebanese experience with the modernization of laws and the Egyptian experience with collection and codification of laws. The study concluded that the improvement of Arab parliament performance is a multi dimensional process. At the constitutional level, constitutional reform is needed to address the imbalance between the legislative and executive authorities. At the political level, the whole democratic process in the Arab world should be pushed forward in terms of strengthening party structures, securing free and democratic elections and increasing the participation of civil society. Finally, technical factors should be emphasized, like an efficient administrative apparatus capable of providing an advisory role to deputies, well prepared and qualified parliamentarians capable of performing efficiently their legislative and oversight roles, a set of advanced technical capacities helping to provide a sustainable level of good parliamentary performance, and finally an exchange of parliamentary experiences on a large scale.
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