Syria's official news agency has released some details of the draft law for political parties which was approved by the cabinet on Sunday. Though hailed by the information minister as "modern" and laying the foundations for a new era of pluralism, the law looks remarkably similar to those found in other Arab states where parties are allowed but strictly regulated by the government. 

According to the draft, Syrian parties must meet various requirements:

1. Commitment to the constitution, principles of democracy and the rule of law, respecting liberties, basic rights, world declarations of human rights and the agreements approved by the Syrian Arab Republic.

2. Preserving the unity of the homeland and bolstering society's national unity.

3. Making public the principles, goals, methods and funding of a party.

4. A party cannot be based on religious, tribal, regional, denominational, or profession-related basis or on the basis of discrimination due to ethnicity, gender or race.

5. A party's formation, selection of leadership and commencement of activities must be carried out using democratic basis.

6. A party's methods must not include establishing public or covert military or paramilitary formations, nor must it use violence of any kind, threaten with it, or instigate it.

7. A party cannot be a branch of a non-Syrian party or political organisation, not can it be affiliated to one.

Although some of these rules may seem unobjectionable in themselves, stipulations of this kind conflict with basic democratic principles since it is the task of voters, not the authorities, to determine whether a party is suitable for election.

Any opposition party worth its salt would fall foul of Requirement No 1 – "commitment to the constitution" – which appears to say that they must accept the constitution as it stands. The Syrian constitution desperately needs overhauling, and especially Article 8 which says "The leading party in the society and the state is the Socialist Arab Baath Party." No other party can reasonably be expected to accept that.

Similarly, the obligation on parties to "bolster society's national unity" is extremely vague and open to abuse. Parties that oppose the government could easily be accused of damaging national unity – and shut down as a result.

Requirement No 4 seems designed to keep Islamist and Kurdish nationalist parties at bay. While parties based around religion or tribes are definitely not a good idea (in my opinion), voters should still be given the right to accept or reject them. Prohibiting them serves no useful purpose because, as experience elsewhere has shown, Islamist will simply operate in disguise if necessary or stand as "independent" candidates.

(Incidentally, as an article in The National points out, this rule could also make the ruling Baath party illegal unless it drops the word "Arab" from its full title and amends its constitution.)

As in other Arab countries, Syrian political parties will need a permit from the authorities in order to function. The registration process was described by the justice minister in the official news agency's report:

"On applying for establishing a party, the minister said that the application should be referred to the committee with the signature of 50 of its members, adding that the members should be of Syrian nationality for more than 10 years, over 25 years old, not convicted of an offence or felony, and not a member of another Syrian or foreign party.

"He indicated that the minimum number of any party members should be 1,000, and that they should belong to at least half of the Syrian governorate with each governorate represented by at least 5% of the overall number of members.

"The minister pointed out that the committee will decide, within 60 days from receiving the application, whether to accept or reject the application, and that rejection will be accompanied by an explanation.

"He added that in case the committee fails to decide within that period, the application will be considered accepted, and in case the application is rejected, the applicants can object within 15 days and the court will have 60 days to reach a decision."

Again, this broadly follows the practice adopted in other (unreformed) Arab countries. The requirement to be "not convicted of an offence or felony" clearly applies to common criminals but it appears also to prevent former political prisoners from establishing parties.

Most established democracies have systems for registering political parties but registration is often voluntary and confers certain benefits, such as protecting the party’s name and logo from imitations. Registration in these countries is normally a straightforward and apolitical process: in Britain, all it requires is some basic information such as the party’s name and address, and the name and address of its leader and nominating officer. 

There is nothing to suggest that registration of parties formed under Syria's proposed new law will be automatic. It seems that the authorities will be at liberty to reject any application, so long as they give reasons. 

The principle of registration by default (in the absence of a reply) is also found in several other countries in connection with the registration of NGOs. It's an odd practice, which seems designed to give the authorities the option of kicking organisations into a legal limbo rather than rejecting their applications outright.

This is what happened with Helem, the Lebanese LGBT organisation. In the absence of any response from the authorities to its application, it became technically registered but without a registration number. Among other things, the lack of a registration number meant it was unable to open a Lebanese bank account. 

In Tunisia, under Ben Ali, officials would circumvent the legal time limit by refusing to give receipts when NGOs applied to register. A report by the US State Department described this as routine practice: "Without such a receipt, NGOs were unable to counter the government’s assertions that they had not applied to register and therefore were not allowed to operate. In such cases NGOs could be shut down, their property seized, and their members prosecuted for 'membership in an illegal organisation'."

In Syria's case, all this may be somewhat academic because unless circumstances on the ground change very dramatically the party law is unlikely ever to become operational. What it shows though, as with the earlier new law permitting (but restricting) demonstrations, is that President Assad's idea of "reform" is to introduce outdated measures that other Arab countries adopted years ago and which are now increasingly being rejected by their citizens.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 26 July 2011