Supreme Court grants government temporary reprieve on senior appointees

The Federal Supreme Court has issued a temporary injunction that allows senior government officials working in an acting capacity to maintain their authorities until a final judicial verdict can be issued.

The Supreme Court issued the injunction in response to a request by the Sudani government, following the passing of a key deadline on resolving the issue of acting senior officials.

Iraq Horizons reported in June on a government lawsuit that was filed on the same day that the budget law was published in the official gazette. The legal action submitted to the Supreme Court challenged 12 provisions in the text of the budget law that the government claimed to be unconstitutional.

Of those provisions is Article 71, which requires the government to resolve the issue of “acting” special grades by November 30, meaning that the government would need to submit the names of all senior officials (deputy ministers, DGs, advisors) working in an acting capacity to parliament for its approval before that date. The government objected to the provision, claiming that it constituted interference in its own timeline for resolving the issue.

In August, the Supreme Court issued a verdict that rejected the government’s challenge to Article 71.

But in September, the government  filed a new challenge to Article 71, requesting the Supreme Court to suspend the provision until the earlier verdict could be fully reconsidered.

The governments reasoning on the issue is as follows: