This section will limit the assessment of the Lebanese parliament’s legislative performance to the 1992-96 and 1996-2000 legislative phases.

It was natural that the new parliament be pro-government considering Maronites’ refrain from voting. One of the elections’ most important results was Hezbollah’s (and its allies’) acquisition of 12 seats, the Progressive Socialist Party and the Jabhat An-Nidal Party’s acquisition of 11 seats, the Dr. Selim Al-Hoss Group of 10 seats, the Tahreer Group headed by Nabih Birri of 6 seats, the Syrian Nationalist Social Party of 6 seats, the Islamic Group and its allies of 4 seats, and the acquisition of a seat for each of the Islamic Charity Projects Organization, the Waad Party, the pro-Syrian Baath Party, the Arab Socialist Union, the People’s Nasserite Organization, and the Arab Democratic Party. As for the rest of the winners, they were independent national figures, sectarian leaders, or pro-President Maronite figures, in addition to some intellectuals .

This parliament served its specified legislative four-year term in accordance with the text of the constitution. Its performance during these years fluctuated between strength and weakness in confronting the government. One of the main reasons leading to this parliament’s weakness was its lack of fair representation of the Lebanese people. In Maronites’ eyes, the absence of Maronites within the parliament decreases the legality of what it issues. Parliament members had very restricted room to maneuver due to the strong influence exercised by Syria on representative parliament members, a large number of whom were pro-Syrian or at least not anti-Syrian and not oppositional to its presence on Lebanese territory. Thus the parliament was free—as some saw it—to maneuver or approve legislation in issues that do not concern the Syrian government. As for those that do (such as the peace process), it was impossible to approach it except through permission from Syria .

Despite this, the parliament played an important role in Lebanese political life in the post-war period. It was an important mechanism for restoring unity in Lebanese society after it had been disrupted by the civil war and for incorporating some groups—which were previously unrepresented in the political system—within the legal framework of political activity (such as Hezbollah, which began as a political group oppositional to the system and turned into an organized political party working within the context and under the rule of the system in accordance with the established principles for the political game) .

The 1992 parliament exhibited irregularly intensive activity during its legislative period, during which it was comparable to a beehive. This was reflected by the committees’ meetings and those of the parliament’s General Assembly in addition to two exceptional sessions in 1993 and the promulgation of late laws such as the 1992 fiscal plan .

From the beginning of the exercise of its functions, the parliament exhibited an insistence on fully practicing its legislative functions and on not declining them for any reason. This is what was affirmed by the parliament’s complete rejection, during it legislative period, of offering the government exceptional powers in making legislations in some domains. The parliament rejected all the requests made by Prime Minister Rafik Hariri over four years to acquire the power to issue decretal laws and only later submit them to the parliament to read them. Speaker of Parliament Nabih Birri and a number of other parliamentary leaders said—during this period—that they view legislation by delegation as a relinquishing of the parliament’s constitutional duties .

Among the parliament’s justifications for refusing the government’s requests to delegate legislative power in some domains:
1- That the new parliament was at the beginning of its session and could not condemn itself from the first step for disregard or the inability to complement government projects to the extent of starting to give the government the same legislative privileges that are the prime functions constitutionally entrusted to the parliament itself.
2- That the new parliament is resolved to employ the strongest of its forces to handle all the proposed and pending issues, among them the issues that the government sought to submit in the parliament so that its can pass legislations regarding them. The parliament awaits notification of the government’s projects so that it can study them as the earliest possible time.
3- That the new parliament and some of the conflicts that accompanied the election of its members cannot yield to giving the government exceptional privileges or else considers that an acknowledgment of its inability to legislate and handle issues.
4- That parliament members are determined to adhere to the legal texts that govern the relationship between powers and that they consider that any violation of any constitutional text at the beginning of the new parliament’s session would open the door to later violations, which would constitute a danger to democracy and its limits in general .

That parliament has exhibited a major distinction in the field of legislative practice compared to most parliaments witnessed by Lebanese political life and also compared to other Arab legislative councils. This distinction is in terms of the following variables:
A- The number of legislative meetings relative to the number of total parliament meetings: Among 53 meetings held by the parliament, 34 were specialized for its practice of its legislative role at a percentage of 64.15.
B- The number of laws approved by the parliament: The parliament approved 426 laws.
C- The time taken by the parliament to discuss these laws: It took 316 hours to study and discuss these laws, in which 5958 parliament members who were present in the successive meetings participated.
D- The time average required to discuss its legislative initiative: 44 minutes.
E- The average number of parliament members present in the legislative meetings: 112 members .

Among the laws approved by the parliament, 68 were draft law proposals at 16% (42 draft law proposals, one urgent draft law proposal, 52 proposals for repeated urgent draft laws). This percentage rose from 9% in 1992-93 to 20% in 1995. It is a percentage that exceeds the prevailing average in most of the world’s countries for the percentage of draft law proposals presented by parliament members to the total number of laws issued by the parliament and which does not exceed 5%. As for the percentage of draft law proposals (submitted by parliament members) that were approved, it was 27.35%. This reveals the extent of effectiveness of the legislative performance of the 1992-96 Lebanese parliament .

This parliament’s legislative achievement was not merely an achievement but a qualitative one as well. The nature of laws approved by the parliament constitutes a phenomenon in terms of substance as well and a legislative achievement in Lebanese history. Examples are the law of visual and audio media, amending the law of duties, contracts, and the penal code, the series of laws supporting social security (among them, the law of founding the national institution for housing and giving banks some fee exemptions on residential loans, the law of mandatory premarital medical testimony, series of financial and banking laws considered a basis for encouraging investments .

The parliament also made its contribution to the human rights field. It promulgated, in 14/11/99, law no. 375, which removed discrimination between men and women in testifying on real estate sales and mortgages. Prior to the promulgation of this law, it was prohibited for a woman to be a witness on an estate sale contract or mortgage or insurance before an official authority. The promulgation of this law expresses the rise in parliament members’ awareness and their realization of women’s developing role in political and economic life and also expresses their response to mass demands. The approval of this law was an achievement of the Lebanese Human Rights Organization .

This parliament began its legislative period by an initiative that was the first of its kind in Lebanese history. Mr. Nabih Birri began by forming a new workshop (that of the compression of laws) to which he summoned high-ranking law-officers, asking them to re-examine all enforced laws. Among these laws were the following: payments and contracts, criminal code, and commerce and estate laws. This summon for re-examination aimed at modernizing and reconsidering these laws, and the significance of this step consists in that it was placed in the hands of the legislative power which called for constitutional amendment without the need to await the government’s call for amendment.

This fact explains the high rate of draft law proposals approved by the parliament compared to the total laws it approved during its legislative session.

Parliament members also made a distinctive contribution in supervising and proposing amendments in draft laws submitted by the government such as the law of suburban development. The parliament forced the government to withdraw it (January 1993).

Approval of the law of founding the Constitutional Council in June 1993 was also one of the important achievements in the parliament’s life, considering this parliament’s important role in Lebanese political life.

Yet this is not to say that the parliament during its practice of its role did not face difficulties from the executive power (the President of the Republic and Prime Minister). Neither can the presence of criticism of the parliament’s legislative performance be denied.

The year 1994 witnessed a continuation of the Lebanese government’s attempts destroy what had remained of media freedom. Among these attempts’ most prominent features was announcing a near-emergency media state through a cabinet of ministers decree issued on March 23 restricting the broadcast of news and political programs exclusively to Télé Liban and prohibiting other TV stations, and specially radio stations, from such broadcast that until the promulgation of a media regulatory law without specifying a date for such a law.

The parliament confronted this decree in two phases:
The first phase: This phase focused on facing the imposed restrictions on the press through working towards amending decree 104, which imposes exceptional on newspapers such as imprisonment, preventive arrest of the journalist, and administrative impounding and confiscation of the newspaper. The parliament’s efforts succeeded in amending this decree in April 11 by removing some of the exceptional punishments and diminishing others. Regarding the print medium: The punishments of administrative disabling for the publication were removed by a decision of the Minister of Media. Also cancelled were the impounding measures by the public prosecutor, the license withdrawal or franchise removal of the franchise no matter how many times the offense was repeated. As for journalists, preventive imprisonment of journalists was cancelled in all print publication offenses. Also cancelled was preventive imprisonment in offenses not mentioned in the criminal code. The court trial period was shortened, and the principle of refraining from taking measures to arrest the publication or journalist prior to the issuing of a binding court verdict was approved .
The second phase: This phase focused on television and radio to preserve the existing pluralism and limit the restrictions imposed on them. The parliament embarked on an initiative in July 1994 aimed at permitting visual and audio media to broadcast news and political programs again after the March decree prohibited them from doing so. Supporters of canceling this decree entered a struggle with the government, which attempted to unify its own supporters to prevent the legal quorum from forming in the parliament’s assembly. But the parliament succeeded in canceling the decree on July 14. A number of parliament members known for their support of public liberties and human rights submitted a draft law proposal for regulating media that would be worth their victory. Meanwhile, the government was preparing a restrictive project. The parliament’s quick move to propose a draft law made the government hasten to prepare this project. The parliament witnessed rich discussions between the two sides, ending in mid-October in approving a compromise formula for the law that reflected some form of balance between the two sides .

This law was drafted to control the fears that emerged during the last two years from restricting the freedom of visual and audio media. This law came in a balanced and positive form in the final analysis. It respected the principles on which the constitution is based regarding the freedom of opinion and expression and regarding cultural pluralism. The constitution stipulates in its third Article the freedom of television and radio and obliged these media institutions (in its sixth Article) to respect the human individual, the liberties and rights of others, the pluralistic nature of expressing thoughts and opinions, and the objectivity of news and events broadcast, in addition to preserving the public system, the needs of national defense, and the requirements of public interest .

Parliament members had an important role in rejecting some of the Articles of the draft law submitted by the government and restricting to a large extent the freedom of media, such as Article 12, which gives the government exceptional privileges regarding the license decree, and Article 44, which specifies the number of broadcast institutions allowed to receive licenses. The law still gives the cabinet of ministers the privilege of licensing visual and audio media, but only after consulting with the National Council for Media, which supports the cabinet’s authority in this matter. The government still holds the power to endorse punishment of institutions that violate the conditions of the license instead of referring these violations to judicial authorities.

The following year (1995) also witnessed a new issue, that of the renewal of President Elias Hrawi’s presidency. This issue began in the aftermath of the Syrian-Lebanese Congress in April of the same year, and Syria played a major role in it. The issue remained under discussion in the Lebanese political arena for six months, during which debate oscillated between the need to extend Elias Hrawi’s presidency and the required corresponding constitutional amendments on one hand and between the desire to conduct new presidential elections on the other. This debate was not concluded until October 19 when the parliament approved an exceptional amendment proposal to extend President Hrawi’s term (This amendment stated that “Only for one time and as an exception, the term of the current President of the Republic shall be extended for three years that end in 23 November 1998). This proposal was supported by 110 members and opposed by 11 (This opposition was the focus of much admiration from a large sector of the public that found in it an expression of its views). Seven members were absent. At the forefront of the opposition was Prime Minister Dr. Selim Al Hoss while at the forefront of supporters was Speaker of Parliament Nabih Birri (he was the one who insisted on submitting the extension proposal to the parliament. A large number of parliament and government members supported him despite President Hrawi’s own reluctance toward this insistence).

With regards to assessing the parliament’s legislative performance, some analysts who are for democracy and for the parliament’s role in the legislative process criticized the parliament in the following respects:

1- The low percentage of draft law proposals submitted by members relative to the total number of laws on its work agenda.
2- Approving all the draft laws submitted by the government without expanded discussion of some draft laws and the hastiness to approve a number of them (such as approving 17 draft laws in half an hour in the parliamentary meeting dated 21 May 1996).
3- Ranking the draft laws submitted by the government at the top of the parliament’s work agenda even though the constitution and parliament’s by-laws gave parliament members’ draft law proposals the priority over draft laws submitted by the government (as seen by these analysts).
4- The issue of lack of legal quorum for holding the meeting and the government’s utilization of this situation to impair the draft law proposals it opposes. This happened at a time when the parliament approved draft laws submitted by the government despite the lack of legal quorum (such as the parliament’s approval in its meeting, dated 23/5/1995, of two proposals supported by the government despite their absence from the work agenda. The first is related to legitimation of expatriation attachés. The second of these proposals aims at forming a directorate for supervising the work of expatriates abroad ).

Some indicated the parliament’s non-adherence to a matter announced by its Speaker Nabih Birri in the beginning of 1995 regarding the parliament’s plan to pass some laws that year. Among these are a new law for illicit enrichment, a new law for organizations and parties, the implementation of Article 95 of the constitution on the formation of a national association to take the appropriate procedures to eliminate political sectarianism .

The Promulgation of Laws
The promulgation of laws was one of the debate-generating issues in the 1992 parliament. The Lebanese constitution specified a deadline between approving a law, promulgating it, and requesting to publish it. Yet the constitutions left to the regular legislative body the specification of the deadline between the promulgation request and the actual promulgation. The problem here consists in that sometimes promulgation occurs in the supplement of the official gazette and is given the publication date of the main edition while promulgation actually occurs after the main issue’s publication date, all of which impairs legal deadlines and puts people’s rights at risk, particularly since Article 19 of the constitution specified a particular deadline for contesting the laws approved by the parliament. If this contesting these laws is presented within the deadline then it is not legal to present it and the government might neglect the promulgation of some decrees which forfeits citizens’ right to reconsider it and decreases the parliament’s supervision of government policies and acts. This is why parliament member Hussein Al-Husseini had presented in 1995 a draft law proposal aimed at specifying the deadline for the publication of laws, decrees, and some cabinet decisions in the official gazette within a maximum of ten days from the date of their promulgation .

After the Lebanese government made non-essential amendments to the electoral law, some powers retreated from their oppositional stance to participating in the elections and hastened to participate. The total number of candidates in the elections was 713 competing to occupy a total of 128 parliamentary seats. It is noteworthy to consider in this context the rise in the number of independent candidates and the decline in the number of candidates belonging to political parties. The number of independent candidates rose from 576 in the 1992 elections to 636 in the 1996 elections while the number of candidates belonging to political parties declined from 78 in the 1992 elections to 74 in the 1996 elections. These differences impacted the elections in terms of the following:
- Elections affirmed the remaining in office of around two thirds of the 1992 parliament members and introduced a third of new members.
- The number of parliament members belonging to political parties declined. Their number did not exceed 32 members (25% of total parliament members) compared to 83 seats in the 1992 parliament while the number of independent members was 96.
- The seats acquired by parties were distributed as follows: 7 seats for each of Hezbollah and Amal Party, 5 seats for the Nationalist Syrian Party, 4 seats for each of the Progressive Socialist Party, the Baath Arab Socialist Party, in addition to other parties that achieved lower representation.
- A reading of the figures of seat distribution of political powers in the 1992 and 1996 parliaments reveals an unchanged number of seats for most Lebanese parties, despite the fact that some of these parties had lost some of their seats in the last elections such as Hezbollah and the Nationalist Syrian Party. Each of these lost 1 seat, the Islamic Group lost 2 of its seats, and the Islamic Charity Projects Organization, which lost the only seat it had in 1993. As for Amal, it was the only party power whose number of seats rose from 5 to 7 .

There are two important remarks to be made regarding the formation of the 1996 parliament: The first is the rise of elected parliament members with high qualifications, which represents the parliament’s internal capability and consolidates its negotiation stance in confronting the executive power. The percentage of parliament members with high qualifications was 92% (the percentage was 51% in the 1943 parliament and rose to 73% in the 1972 parliament). Eighteen percent of parliament members are holders of doctorates. The second important remark to be made is that a number of current parliament members are former ministers with special experience and knowledge of the inner workings of government operation, which strengthens the parliament’s stance in confronting the government .

Considering that the term of the current parliament has not yet ended and that it is difficult to find complete special reports on its exercise of legislative power, the following discussion is limited to the available reports on the 1996 parliament’s exercise of its legislative role.

In this context, Parliamentary Life magazine, published by the Lebanese parliament, had made in its September 1998 issue an assessment of the parliament extending from the time of its first assembly to that date and which constitutes around half its legal term.

This assessment revealed that the council held during the first two years of its legislative session 19 general meetings, among them some limited to legislation (10 meetings out of 19), and the rest were distributed over the parliament’s practice of its supervisory, financial, and other functions. This reveals the importance given by the parliament to the legislative role, to which over half of its total public meetings held in the first two years of its legislative session were devoted. The parliament approved, through the meetings it assigned for practicing its legislative role, 96 draft law proposals and draft laws distributed as follows:
- 58 regular draft laws
- 10 urgent draft laws (the total number of draft laws was 68)
-13 regular draft law proposals
-15 urgent draft law proposals (the total number of draft law proposals was 28)

Thus, the percentage of draft laws to the total number of laws approved by the parliament was 29.2%, and this is a very high percentage compared to the world average. It is higher than that achieved by the previous parliament in its last session (20%).

To respond to the criticisms of the parliament regarding its speedy discussion of draft laws and draft law proposals, Parliamentary Life magazine made compared the time designated for legislation in the 1997 meetings to that of other years and parliaments, concluding that the average time designated by the new parliament during this year for discussing the single legislative initiative (draft law proposal or draft law) was 46 minutes (whereby the parliament approved 76 legislations over 7 legislative meetings that took 59 hours) compared to 44 minutes in the 1996 parliament and 18 minutes in the 1972 parliament .

On considering examples of legislative meetings or legislations, we find that the parliament discussed, during the meeting assigned for legislation and held on 4 March 1998, 28 legislative initiatives distributed as follows:
* 14 draft laws, of which 10 received the parliament’s approval, 2 were postponed, one was referred to the relevant committee, and one was withdrawn by the government.
* 11 draft law proposals, of which 3 received the parliament’s approval, and the ret were referred to the relevant committees for further study.
* 3 proposals for urgent recurring draft laws all of which received the parliament’s approval despite their absence from the meeting’s work agenda .

Though the parliament had approved 10 draft laws submitted by the government compared to 3 draft law proposals submitted by members, it postponed two draft laws submitted by the government, made it withdraw one draft law, and referred another to the relevant committee (which affirms that it does not yield to whatever the government submits). The parliament referred 8 draft law proposals to the relevant committees for further study of these proposals so that no flawed legislation would be promulgated by this parliament and be subject to its constitutionality being contested and so that it would be re-examined by exchange of opinion on it, which brings members’ viewpoints closer together toward gathering the necessary support for approving it when it is presented once again before the parliament. The parliament’s approval of three proposals for urgent recurring draft laws, despite their absence from its work agenda, affirms the parliament’s initiative and sovereignty in legislative performance.

The parliament held on 15 October of the same year a meeting for electing a new president to succeed Mr. Elias Hrawi and elected General Emile Lahoud, leader of the Lebanese army, as President of the Republic by the unanimity of parliament members present (118 parliament members out of 128), after re-voting and the withdrawal of Lahoud’s competitors. Lahoud came into office on November 24 .

As for the year 1999, one of the most important laws approved by the parliament were the intellectual copyright law and the monitoring law.

A- The Law of Intellectual, Literary, and Artistic Copyright
The Lebanese parliament’s approval of this law constitutes a distinct situation marking the progress level of legislative practice in Lebanon, for the law had originally been a draft law proposal prepared by a parliamentary association to modernize laws four years ago based on the demands of literary writers and major artists to protect their literary and artistic produce from the theft it suffers. As a result, the association proceeded to review the adopted legal formulas in the world, found that the formula adopted in Singapore is more than modern, and adopted a part of it, keeping in mind the conditions of the Bern Agreement .

After that, the proposal was incorporated into in the parliament’s work agenda in its legislative meeting dated 19 March 1999. On this meeting’s work agenda were 33 Items, 25 of which were approved by the parliament, and two draft laws were withdrawn by the government for re-examination. This proposal was one of the most important Items on the work agenda whereby 50 parliament members out of the total ones attending (103) discussed it, and the parliament finally approved it .

However, the two parliament members Marwan Fares and Najah Wakim accused the Speaker of Parliament of passing this proposal due to pressure from the US ambassador and threatened to withdraw confidence from the government and contest the law before a constitutional council if the government publishes the law in the official gazette. These two parliament members held that voting on the law was a violation of the constitution and parliament’s by-laws. Voting was made on one Article and without the roll call as regulations require. They also considered the legal quorum as unmet prior to voting on the draft law proposal .

Before this stance, Speaker of Parliament Nabih Birri was forced to conduct a re-vote on the proposal by roll call, and the proposal received the approval of 17 parliament members. The parliament members representing the Syrian Nationalist Social Party voted against it, and a number of other parliament members refrained from voting. The proposal was approved after the amendment submitted by parliament member Boutros Harb was made by adding a paragraph that gives students a one-time permission to copy programs for their personal use, and this paragraph was requested by several parliament members . Legislating this Article affirms the parliament’s ability to incorporate what it sees fit in terms of amendments to all laws that it discusses.

B- The Law of Monitoring Private Communications
As is habitual for the parliament to approve a number of draft laws and draft law proposals in one meeting assigned to legislative practice, the parliament in its meeting of 13 October 1999 approved 21 draft laws and draft law proposals. The most prominent of these was law of the right to communication privacy through any medium (monitoring), which approved the government’s right to monitor citizens’ phone communications and correspondence to protect national security and for investigation purposes, after receiving permission from the judicial authorities. After discussions of the law’s items, the parliament approved an amendment to the draft law prohibiting the monitoring of presidents’ communications (the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister, the Speaker of Parliament) and of ministers and parliament members. Parliament members’ discussions affirmed the following:
- The parliament discusses this draft law through the perspective of monitoring and not that of covering for it.
- That the parliament’s role comprises combating any form of monitoring and that draft law’s aim is thus setting strict restraints to guarantee the secrecy of conversations not related to national security or crimes.
- That the law came within the constitution’s framework.
-That the parliament must have a role in supervising the law’s enforcement.

The parliament had approved the draft law by a large majority, and the only opposition to it was Jabhat An-Nidal Al-Watani (meaning National Fighting Front) headed by Walid Junblat .