The principles listed in the ruling of the Federal Supreme Court issued No. (224 and its unified 269 / federal / 2023) on 21/2/2024

 

 

The Federal Supreme Court finds in its judgment issued No. (224 and its unified 269 / Federal / 2023) dated 21/2/2024 the following:

   

     Article 14 of the Constitution of the Republic of Iraq of 2005 stipulates that equality must be achieved among Iraqis without discrimination for any reason, and that the application of this must be actual and not theoretical in order to create a correct national belonging among all the Iraqi people. This requires treating all employees, retirees, beneficiaries of the social protection network and all employees of state departments, civilian and military, in the Kurdistan region in the same treatment with their peers with the federal government agencies and institutions.

- Our Kurdish people possess humanitarian, moral and national values of high content and have made a large number of sacrifices in their long struggle against the former regime, like the rest of the Iraqi people, and this calls for the necessity of achieving justice among all citizens, especially with regard to the salaries of the region.

- The federal government's granting of loans to the regional government and very large amounts over the past years, contrary to the provisions of the Federal Budget Law No. (13) of 2023, did not remove the obstacles that led to this violation, as not all loan amounts were used by the regional government to pay salaries in the region.

- The enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights in accordance with articles 22-36 of the Constitution of the Republic of Iraq of 2005 is closely linked to the enjoyment of political rights. Therefore, depriving the people of it or detracting from that benefit for the general citizens or for a certain category of them represents arbitral discrimination that is not based on objective grounds justifying it.

- The subordination of states to the constitution remains determined in the light of a democratic concept based on equality and non-discrimination for any reason, and that this requires obliging the competent federal and regional authorities to take the necessary means for citizens to enjoy these rights and freedoms and remove obstacles that prevent their enjoyment, especially the issue of salaries in the Kurdistan region.

- The main purpose of the constitutional judiciary is to oblige the federal authorities to the limits of their constitutional competencies and not to exceed them and return them to the limits of those competencies to protect private rights and freedoms.

- The Federal Supreme Court proved that employees, retirees and beneficiaries of the social protection network in the Kurdistan region did not receive their salaries regularly on a monthly basis like their peers within the departments subject to the federal authorities, and that this violates the provisions of Articles (14, 16, 22-36) of the Constitution of the Republic of Iraq for the year 2005 and that this violation must be removed in accordance with the Constitution.

- The arbitrariness of a particular authority in the exercise of its constitutional powers should not be a reason that prevents citizens from enjoying constitutional rights.