1973 Constitution of Bahrain

Last updated September 09, 2023

The 1973 Constitution of Bahrain was the first of two constitutions of Bahrain. It was in effect from December 1973 to August 1975.^[1]

Background and drafting

On December 16, 1971, the day Bahrain formally became independent of the United Kingdom (Bahrain technically gained its independence earlier in the year, on August 15), Shaykh Isa ibn Salman announced that the country would have a constitutional form of government.^[1] Six months later, he issued a decree providing for the election of representatives to a Constituent Assembly, charged with drafting and ratifying a constitution.^[1] The assembly was to consist of twenty-two elected delegates plus twenty additional members, including eight delegates appointed by the emir and the twelve members at the time of the Council of Ministers.^[1] The election, which was held in December 1972, was the first national election in Bahrain's history.^[1] The electorate was restricted to native-born male citizens aged twenty years and older.^[1]

The relative openness of political debate permitted during the election campaign for the twenty-two contested Constituent Assembly seats encouraged individuals dissatisfied with the lack of democratic rights to demand more civil liberties.^[1] The primary focus of concern was the 1965 Law of Public Security, a series of three emiri decrees that authorized the ruler to maintain indefinitely a virtual state of emergency in order to protect national security from suspected foreign and domestic enemies.^[1] A group of mostly university-educated professionals, led by Abd al Aziz Shamlan, unsuccessfully petitioned the emir to rescind the law's harshest provisions, especially those pertaining to arrest and detention.^[1] They believed these measures had been used arbitrarily to silence dissent and peaceful opposition.^[1] Several women's groups also organized to protest the exclusion of women from the franchise.^[1] They presented a petition to the emir requesting support for extending voting rights to female citizens, but they failed to receive a positive response.^[1]

The Constituent Assembly was in session during most of 1973 drafting the constitution.^[1]

The Constitution

The constitution, enacted by emiri decree in December 1973, contained 108 articles.^[1] It provided for an advisory legislative body, the National Assembly, consisting of thirty members elected for four-year terms, plus all the members of the Council of Ministers whose terms were not fixed, as ex officio members.^[1] The assembly was not empowered to initiate or enact legislation, but it was authorized to give advice and consent to laws proposed by the Council of Ministers.^[1] The assembly had the right to question individual ministers about policies and to withdraw confidence from any minister except the prime minister.^[1] The constitution stipulated that the emir could dissolve the assembly at his discretion, provided he make public the grounds for so doing.^[1] If the assembly were dissolved by decree, new elections had to take place within two months or the dissolution would be invalidated and the dismissed members reinstated.^[1]

Election under the 1973 Constitution and suspension of the 1973 Constitution

The 1973 Bahraini general election was the only election held under the 1973 Constitution.

The emir dissolved the National Assembly in August 1975, citing its inability to cooperate with the government.^[1] Although the constitution stipulated that new elections had to take place within two months of a dissolution, this did not occur.^[1] One year later, in August 1976, Shaykh Isa ibn Salman announced that the National Assembly would remain dissolved indefinitely.^[1]

The country was governed under emergency laws from 1975 to 2002.^[2]

Related Research Articles

Politics of Bahrain has since 2002 taken place in a framework of a constitutional monarchy where the government is appointed by the King of Bahrain, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. The head of the government since 2020 is Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, who became Prime Minister following the death of Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, and who also serves as Deputy Commander of the Bahrain Defence Force. The parliament is a bi-cameral legislature, with the Council of Representatives elected by universal suffrage, and the Consultative Council appointed directly by the king.

A constituent assembly is a body assembled for the purpose of drafting or revising a constitution. Members of a constituent assembly may be elected by popular vote, drawn by sortition, appointed, or some combination of these methods. Assemblies are typically considered distinct from a regular legislature, although members of the legislature may compose a significant number or all of its members. As the fundamental document constituting a state, a constitution cannot normally be modified or amended by the state's normal legislative procedures in some jurisdictions; instead a constitutional convention or a constituent assembly, the rules for which are normally laid down in the constitution, must be set up. A constituent assembly is usually set up for its specific purpose, which it carries out in a relatively short time, after which the assembly is dissolved. A constituent assembly is a form of representative democracy.

Hamad bin Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa is King of Bahrain since 14 February 2002, after ruling as Emir of Bahrain from 6 March 1999.

Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa was a Bahraini royal and politician who served as the Prime Minister of Bahrain from 10 January 1970 until his death in 2020. He took office over a year before Bahrain's independence on 15 August 1971. He was the longest-serving prime minister in the world. Under the 2002 Constitution he lost some of his powers, with the King now having the authority to appoint and dismiss ministers.

Isa bin Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa was the first emir of Bahrain from 1961 until his death in 1999.

Dissolution of a legislative assembly is the mandatory simultaneous resignation of all of its members, in anticipation that a successive legislative assembly will reconvene later with possibly different members. In a democracy, the new assembly is chosen by a general election. Dissolution is distinct on the one hand from abolition of the assembly, and on the other hand from its adjournment or prorogation, or the ending of a legislative session, any of which begins a period of inactivity after which it is anticipated that the same members will reassemble. For example, the "second session of the fifth parliament" could be followed by the "third session of the fifth parliament" after a prorogation, but the "first session of the sixth parliament" after a dissolution.

The House of Khalifa is the ruling family of the Kingdom of Bahrain. The Al Khalifas profess Sunni Islam and belong to the Anizah tribe, some members of this tribe joined the Utub alliance which migrated from Central Arabia to Kuwait, then ruled all of Qatar, more specifically Al Zubarah, which they built and ruled over before settling in Bahrain in the early 17th century. The current head of the family is Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, who became the Emir of Bahrain in 1999 and proclaimed himself King of Bahrain in 2002, in fact becoming a constitutional monarch.

Bahrain has had two constitutions in its modern history. The first one was promulgated in 1973, and the second one in 2002.

Following Bahrain's independence from the British in 1971, the government of Bahrain embarked on an extended period of political suppression under a 1974 State Security Law shortly after the adoption of the country's first formal Constitution in 1973. Overwhelming objections to state authority resulted in the forced dissolution of the National Assembly by Amir Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa and the suspension of the Constitution until 2001. The State Security Law of 1974 was a law used by the government of Bahrain to crush political unrest from 1974 until 2001. It was during this period that the worst human rights violations and torture were said to have taken place. The State Security Law contained measures permitting the government to arrest and imprison individuals without trial for a period of up to three years for crimes relating to state security. A subsequent Decree to the 1974 Act invoked the establishment of State Security Courts, adding to the conditions conducive to the practice of arbitrary arrest and torture. The deteriorating human rights situation in Bahrain is reported to have reached its height in the mid-1990s when thousands of men, women and children were illegally detained, reports of torture and ill-treatment of detainees were documented, and trials fell short of international standards.

The National Assembly is the legislative body of Bahrain. Parliament is bicameral, consisting of the 40 elected members of the Council of Representatives and the 40 royally-appointed members of the Consultative Council. The joint session of the National Assembly is chaired by the Speaker of the Council of Representatives, or by the Speaker of the Consultative Council if the former is absent.

The Council of Representatives, sometimes translated as the "Chamber of Deputies", is the name given to the lower house of the Bahraini National Assembly, the national legislative body of Bahrain.

The 1990s uprising in Bahrain also known as the uprising of dignity was an uprising in Bahrain between 1994 and 1999 in which leftists, liberals and Islamists joined forces to demand democratic reforms. The uprising caused approximately forty deaths and ended after Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa became the Emir of Bahrain in 1999 and a referendum on 14–15 February 2001 massively supported the National Action Charter. The uprising resulted in the deaths of around 40 civilians and at least one Bahraini soldier.

The State of Bahrain was the name of Bahrain from 1971 to 2002. On 15 August 1971, Bahrain declared independence and signed a new treaty of friendship with the United Kingdom. Bahrain joined the United Nations and the Arab League later in the year. The oil boom of the 1970s benefited Bahrain greatly, although the subsequent downturn hurt the economy. The country had already begun diversification of its economy and benefited further from Lebanese Civil War in the 1970s and 1980s, when Bahrain replaced Beirut as the Middle East's financial hub after Lebanon's large banking sector was driven out of the country by the war.

Sheikh Abdul Amir al-Jamri was one of the most prominent Shia clerics and opposition leaders in Bahrain. He was also a writer and a poet.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Bahrain:

The Constitution of Kuwait was created by the Constitutional Assembly in 1961–1962 and signed into law on 11 November 1962 by the Emir, the Commander of the Military of Kuwait Sheikh Abdullah III Al-Salim Al-Sabah.

General elections were held in Bahrain for the first time on 12 December 1973. 30 seats out of the 44-seated unicameral National Assembly were contested, the other 14 were ex officio. Of the 24,883 registered voters, 19,509 cast a ballot, giving a voter turnout of 78.4%.

Constituent Assembly elections were held in Bahrain on 1 December 1972. All candidates ran as independents. A total of 15,385 votes were cast, giving a turnout of 88.5%. However, only 12.5% of the population were registered voters at the time.

Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Dhahrani is a Bahraini politician, who served as Speaker of the Council of Representatives of Bahrain.

The background of the Bahraini uprising dates back to the beginning of the twentieth century. The Bahraini people have protested sporadically throughout the last decades demanding social, economic and political rights. Demonstrations were present as early as the 1920s and the first municipal election was held in 1926. Ruled by Al Khalifas since 1783, Bahrain was a British protectorate for most of the twentieth century. The National Union Committee (NUC) formed in 1954 was the earliest serious challenge to the status quo. Two year after its formation, NUC leaders were imprisoned and deported by authorities.

References

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Hooglund, Eric (1994). "Bahrain: The Constitutional Experiment". In Metz, Helen Chapin (ed.). Persian Gulf states : country studies (3rd ed.). Federal Research Division, Library of Congress. pp. 137–142. ISBN 0-8444-0793-3. OCLC 29548413. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
↑ Bahrain, Federal Research Division, 2004, Kessinger Publishing, pp 97 - 98

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[loc-1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Hooglund, Eric (1994). "Bahrain: The Constitutional Experiment". In Metz, Helen Chapin (ed.). Persian Gulf states : country studies (3rd ed.). Federal Research Division, Library of Congress. pp. 137–142. ISBN 0-8444-0793-3. OCLC 29548413. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)

[FRD-2] Bahrain, Federal Research Division, 2004, Kessinger Publishing, pp 97 - 98

[1]

[2]