Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council voiced on Sunday that it does not have the authority to dissolve the country’s parliament.
Amid a deep political crisis in the country, Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called on the council, Iraq’s highest judicial authority, to dissolve the assembly on Wednesday.
The council had discussed al-Sadr’s request to dissolve the Parliament and found that it has no authority to disband it, it said in a statement.
The statement expressed, “The Supreme Judicial Council has no jurisdiction to intervene in the affairs of the legislative or executive authorities.”
However, it also confirmed its agreement with al-Sadr’s “negative diagnosis of the political situation in the country and the continuing violation of the constitution.”
The council “stands at an equal distance from all political parties and groups,” the judiciary noted.
Following the nomination of Mohammed Shia al-Sudani as a new prime minister by the Coordination Framework, a coalition of groups close to Iran, tension flared up across Iraq in recent days.
Mass protests from supporters of al-Sadr were triggered by the nomination. The protests called for the dissolution of the Parliament and the holding of early polls in Iraq.
As the Coordination Framework hampered the Cabinet’s formation, 73 lawmakers of al-Sadr’s movement resigned from the 329-seat Parliament after failing to form a “national majority” government last June.
Following the country’s general elections last October, which failed since then to agree on a new government between the rival parties, Iraq has been in a political deadlock for nine months.
