The elimination of the Emergency Law and martial law in Syria has long been one of the basic pillars of the demands put forward by opposition forces, intellectuals, and human rights activists. This law has been frequently characterized as poisoning public life as well as being the root cause of the gross human rights violations of the five decades following the 8 March, 1963 coup, led by Ba`thist and Nasserist officers. Political and human rights activists have repeatedly challenged the Emergency Law, often from a human rights perspective, because it grants great powers to the executive and absolves it from accountability and punishment. The state of war those who formed of this law have used as a pretext is non-existent. Moreover, there is also no convincing link between the supposed existence of a state of war and the restrictions on the freedom, movement, and communication of citizens.
After being a taboo for such a long time, discussing the necessity of lifting the Emergency Law is all of a sudden permitted in Syria. This is taking place without any crucial discussion of the justifications for lifting it. If the news circulating is true, and doubt is necessary here whether the law replacing the Emergency Law is worse or not. Is it because it has become outdated, for example, or because it is a violation of freedoms and citizenship?
Before the outbreak of popular protests in a number of Syrian cities almost five months ago, a member of parliament suggested that the Emergency Law be reconsidered. His suggestion was met with unequivocal rejection. This is not surprising given the conduct of the Syrian Parliament, and the manner with which it is appointed. On the other hand, when Syrian officials were confronted (especially in the non-Syrian media) and asked to explain the justifications for keeping the Emergency Law, they either said that this law is not in force, or it is only applied in very limited cases. This shows how difficult it is to defend or justify both the existence of this law as well as its application.
However, what is even more bitter than maintaining the state of emergency and its disastrous consequences for citizens` freedom and human rights, is when the details and effects of political life in the country are reductively attributed to the Emergency Law and martial law alone. There are other "laws" and methods at work in the political sphere, sometimes visible and sometimes hidden. .
In principle, any state may declare a state of emergency for many reasons, but it is always constrained by strict temporal and spatial conditions, and the condition that there be no conflict with the constitution and the basic rights of citizens cited in international and local legal codes. Perhaps the decisive factor here is the presence of the law and judicial authorities (despite the existence of a state of emergency), and the deep rootedness of the institutional structure of the state and of political authority itself.
We know that the Syrian nation-state has not matured in sound environments. It was born with the burden of socio-economic problems and the tense regional climate (including the founding of Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict), but especially in the wake of successive military coups that, except for very limited periods, hindered political stability. The latter is what allows state structures to form and take root. With the 1970 coup—the "Corrective Movement"—the characteristics of the state began to change from an unstable military regime into a security regime and a one-party system. Under its rule the country lived in unmistakable "stability," but at a high price, namely, a quasi-civil war in the 1980s and a decline at all levels, particularly in the way the dignity and freedom of citizens was crushed. And since these state structures could not develop, we experienced the erosion of the state in favor of predatory rule that monopolized power, politics, economic decisions, and the entire public domain.
We assume that the reason for the entrenched pattern of authoritarian rule in Damascus was not because of the state of emergency alone, but also because of the weakness of the institutional structure of the Syrian state and because of the fierce struggle over power among the political elite and the obsession with monopolizing power, so that the regime bestows wealth and fulfills interests and ambitions without accountability.
We also assume that in a declared state of emergency with acceptable and known legal conditions, under the sovereignty of a political regime not entirely owned by rulers for life, there would be no important effect on public political life, despite the potential of possible breaches of human rights. But these that are eventually subject to restitution and accountability.
In Syria (where all the legislative and political institutions adhere to personal power) it is not possible to attribute all political crimes and breaches of rights that have occurred to the state of emergency. It is not possible, for example, to explain the absence of free elections during the past decades and at every level (although with respect to the presidency, there is basically no election but rather a referendum with only "yes" or "no," and the outcome is predetermined) the presence of more than ten security apparatuses that are not subject to accountability, criticism, and counsel…and that there are parties that "rule" Syria without a parties law…and the eighth article of the constitution, which stipulates that "the Baath Party leads the country and the society"…and the presence of the "People`s Council," such as the current one, whose sole mission is to applaud and cheer and admire…and the disappearance of peaceful activists for ten years or more without trial and subjecting them to forms of torture…and the insistence on the "sanctity" of the current constitution, except when it is necessary not to, such as when an article was changed in the space of minutes one day. The constitution itself is a state of emergency and was written according to the whims of the rulers, but the truth is that even this constitution itself, with all of its defects, is absent.
It is true that the state of emergency has given the government an important means for survival and stability. But the Syrian situation has gone beyond the emergency law per se. We are, in reality, in a state of "no law,” without being in anarchy (beware!). It is controlled by the "law of force," which depends on the terrible security system that controls all facets of the public and private lives of citizens, beyond the reach of any law (including the Emergency Law), with unlimited powers that are not subject to any kind of accountability or supervision whatsoever, coupled with the complete absence of an independent judiciary with respect to political cases, and even non-political ones.
The Emergency Law is not the crux of the matter. It is the state of no law, and the "law of force". So look for force!
[This article was originally written by Badrakhan Ali in Arabic and published in Dar al-Hayat. It was translated into English by Christine Cuk and edited by Sinan Antoon.]