Palestinian Basic Law
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The Palestinian Basic Law

A collection of various propsals and amendments to the Basic Law of Palestine.

About the website

This website presents a collection of various drafts and amendments related to the Basic Law. You can expect to find a collection of Palestinian constitutional texts that have been compiled from various other sources. You can also expect to find pieces of news and links to news items reports that are of relevance to the palestinian Basic Law and the electoral framework.

The website was created by the Norwegian journalists Erik Bolstad and Tonje Merete Viken in February 2008. The site is a private initiative and has no affiliation to any organizations or authorities.

Tonje Merete Viken is a journalist and co-editor and contributer to Caleidoscope – Israel and Palestine from within, a collection of interviews and articles published in Norwegian in 2005.  She travelled with Bolstad as an election observer to the 2006 PLC elections and has lived for shorter periods in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Viken holds an MA in Middle Eastern and North African Studies from the Institute of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages at the University of Oslo. She wrote her thesis on Palestinian Constitutional Development and is currently working at a researcher at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights.

Download the thesis here: Struggles for Power and Unity: Constitutional Designs in the Palestinian Authority.

Erik Bolstad is a journalist and is currently works at the Norwegian Broadcasting Company. He served as an election observer to the Palestinian elections in 2006, where he developed a keen interest in Palestinian contemporary politics.  


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Facts about the Basic Law

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.


About this site

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.

Information and contact details.