1. “Governorates”, what I call provinces, are not sovereign entities, they are creations of or “authorities” organized by the “federal” government with some local organizing decisions that include a “council” with no specification of how representative that council is, or how it is created.
Article 107 describes the exclusive powers of the federal government. It describes what the federal government is responsible for:
Article 111 states: "All powers not stipulated in the exclusive authorities of the federal government shall be the powers of the regions and governorates that are not organized in a region. The priority goes to the regional law in case of conflict between other powers shared between the federal government and regional governments." NB: Sounds like our 10th amendment.
Article 112: "The federal system in the Republic of Iraq is made up of a decentralized capital, regions and governorates, and local administrations." It is up to the regions and governorates to determine their own structures of government just as it is with our states. It is not up to the federal government to dictate how these governments will be structured or run any more than our constitution does.
Article 116: "The region shall adopt a constitution that defines the structure of the regional government, its authorities and the mechanisms of exercising these authorities provided that it does not contradict with this Constitution."
Article 117 stipulates the powers of the regional powers. They have the right to amend national legislation within that region. <
“Article 111 states: “All powers not stipulated in the exclusive authorities of the federal government shall be the powers of the regions and governorates that are not organized in a region.”
What your missing is that the “federal” authority is the creator and organizer of the governorates. The constitution says it grants them “powers”, in the negative sense of powers not stipulated as “federal”, but the control of the exercise of those powers will clearly be the creator and organizer of governorates - the federal government.
“Article 112: “The federal system in the Republic of Iraq is made up of a decentralized capital, regions and governorates, and local administrations.”
Again, what you’re missing is who establishes a governorate - the federal government. How is the governorate organized, locally. It says in Article 118 that the governor of a governorate is “elected” by a “Governorate Council” and goes on to acknowledge that it is as yet undetermined who or how anyone is chosen or placed on the Governorate Council - yet to be determined by, a “federal law”.
And their appears to be a totally and singular Federal Judiciary for which it is left to the vagaries of laws - yet to be enacted (and can be changed by simply writing a new federal law) as to how judges are selected and who selects them.
“Article 116: “The region shall adopt a constitution that defines the structure of the regional government, its authorities and the mechanisms of exercising these authorities provided that it does not contradict with this Constitution.”
Yes, as I said, a “region” (a collection of provinces) has these powers (a constitution), but not a governorate (province) and, as I noted above the articles involving the judiciary define it as a federal power and do not subrogate it to any other authority, other than to say that federal “law” (not the federal constitution) will establish the various courts and their jurisdictions.
Thus, for “governorates” outside of a declared “region” there is little “guarantee” in the Constitution that federal law and federal lawmakers will NOT hold sway over their organization and their “independent” authority.
It is a fractured “federal system” that is federal more in name than in guaranteed definition of clear divisions of powers and responsibilities. Much of it is written like legislation, not foundational government definition. In that it “guarantees” how a lot of mundane things are supposed to work (various “commisions” and “institutions” and the “regions” and governorates participation or representation in them [well actually only that they will have it, but not how]), yet cannot even delineate the clear means of “governorates” being formed and how local representation in them is founded. Much less, the fact that “governorates” have no constitution of their own and appear to be in line to becoming vassals of the federal legislature. With that it is now more understandable why the mid-level of authority, the “region” was established; the Kurds could not get the authority where in belonged, in their provinces and everyone else’s provinces. They were not going to allow their provinces to be left like the Shia and Sunni provinces as vassals of the government in Baghdad.