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Efraim Halevy, former chief of the Israeli intelligence services, has said to Israel's Army Radio that the Palestinian Authority is "useless and nothing but students of Israel and the US. Halevy further said tit is ... More...
According to Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, Fatah and Hamas have made significant steps towards reconciliation. Read: Maan News, "Mash'al: Hamas in 'final stages' of reconcilliation with Fatah", 3 January 2010,http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=251615 More...
According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Arab diplomatic sources say that Fatah has turned down a reconciliation proposal by Hamas. Reportedly, Hamas had planned for the agreement to be signed in ... More...
The December 2008 bombing of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) is the topic of part five of Maan News' series recounting the findings of South African jurist Richard Goldstone's UN Fact Finding ... More...
De facto Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza plans to appoint more ministers to the de facto cabinet. The intention is to ease the workload of ministers who are responsible ... More...
The Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) has decided that President Mahmoud Abbas will stay on after the expiration of his term on 25 January 2010. PLO has also extended the term ... More...
A majority of Palestinians support President Mahmoud Abbas not to run in future Palestinian elections. This is one of the main findings in a poll conducted by the Palestinian Center ... More...
Emilio Dabed compares the political crisis in Palestine to the Chilean political crisis in early 19702. Dabed aims to show that "the Fatah-Hamas conflict does not represent a novelty but, ... More...
President Mahmoud Abbas states that he will stay on as President until new elections are held, but repeats that he will not stand for reelection. Elections were originally slated for ... More...
President Mahmoud Abbas confirms that he has accepted advice not to hold Palestinian elections as scheduled for January 2010. Abbas states that measures will be taken to avoid a constitutional ... More...
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The Palestinian Basic Law is to function as a temporary constitution for the Palestinian Authority until the establishment of an independent state and a permanent constitution for Palestine can be achieved.
The Basic Law was passed by the Palestinian Legislative Council in 1997 and ratified by President Yasser Arafat in 2002. It has subsequently been amended twice; in 2003 the political system was changed to introduce a prime minister. In 2005 it was amended to conform to the new Election Law. The 2003 reform was comprehensive and affected the whole nature of the Palestinian political system, whereas the 2005 amendment was only minor and affected only a few paragraphs.
A parallel effort has been made to draft a permanent Palestinian constitution for an independent state, but this was shelved in favor of amending the existing Basic Law.
This website presents a collection of various drafts and amendments related to the Basic Law and other constitutional texts that have been compiled from various other sources.
You can also expect to find links to news items and reports that are of relevance to Palestinian constitutional law, the electoral framework, political reform and the PA branches of government.
The website was created by the Norwegian journalists Erik Bolstad and Tonje M. Viken in February 2008. The site is a private initiative and has no affiliation to any organizations or authorities.
All external links are purely for information purposes and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors of this site.
