In a blow to anti-Islamist factions, Libya’s highest court has ruled that general elections held in June were unconstitutional and that the parliament and government which resulted from that vote should be dissolved.
The development deepened the rift in the politically divided Libya, which has been mired in months-long clashes and turmoil that have left the country with two rival parliaments and governments, killed hundreds and displaced whole populations of war-torn cities and towns.
The supreme constitutional court issued its ruling on Thursday from the capital of Tripoli, which is controlled by Islamist-allied militias from the powerful western coastal city of Misrata. The militias, which took Tripoli in August, have revived a parliament that ran the country before the elections. They also forced the recently elected parliament, dominated by anti-Islamists, to convene in the far eastern city of Tobruk.
The fact that Libya’s top court ruled from Tripoli raises the question whether it did so under pressure from the militias. The ruling declared illegal a March amendment to the country’s transitional constitution that laid out the roadmap to the June elections, hence effectively rendering the parliament and government that followed the vote also illegal. The Tobruk parliament convened following Thursday’s ruling but it was unclear if lawmakers would officially reject it.
Abu-Bakr Baeira, a leading lawmaker in the Tobruk parliament, described the court’s decision as “politicised” and said it would further partition Libya. “Tripoli is hijacked,” Baeira, who is a strong advocate for setting up a semi-autonomous region in eastern Libya, told Associated Press over the phone from Tobruk. “We don’t recognise anything that comes out of it.”
The parliament’s deputy speaker, however, hailed the ruling as a “victory for the nation”. Saleh al-Makhzoum said it had rendered the Tobruk parliament “nonexistent”.
In Misrata, rallies were held, complete with fireworks, to celebrate the ruling.
Former lawmaker and historian Faraj Najm said the ruling resets Libya “back to square one” and that the choice now faced by the Tobruk-based parliament is “between bad and worse”.
If lawmakers reject the ruling, “we will end up with two entities, both with questions over their legality,” Najm said.
The Tobruk parliament was Libya’s second elected legislature since longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown and killed in a 2011 uprising. Since then, Libya has been gripped by unrest as authorities struggled to rein in regional, ideological and other militias vying for power.
Meanwhile, full-blown war is under way in the eastern city of Benghazi, the birthplace of the uprising, where pro-government forces are battling Islamist militias for control of the city.
Another war zone has opened up in western Libya, where the Misrata militias and allied fighters from a handful of western towns are fighting pro-government forces, including the rival Zintan militia in the mountain town of Kikla.
In the past three weeks, at least 400 people have been killed in both areas of fighting, thousands wounded and thousands displaced.
Omar Homaidan, spokesman for the Tripoli-based parliament, which is not internationally recognised, suggested the supreme court’s reasoning for the ruling was the fact that the March amendment that put in motion the June elections had passed without a required majority vote in the assembly. He said a possible way out of the crisis was to wait for a 60-member panel to finish writing Libya’s new constitution, then call a referendum on it and hold elections after that.
Libya never had a constitution under Gaddafi’s 42-year rule and the turmoil that engulfed the nation since his ousting has stood in the way of the panel finishing its work.
