Written by Aline Barakat for JNews Lebanon
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Absolute Legislative Authority: The “Third Republic” Approach
According to constitutional sources closely monitoring the file, the premise on which the MPs relied when submitting the proposal dates back to the “classical constitutional philosophy” in Lebanon, which is directly inspired by the Constitution of the French Third Republic.
These sources explained to Jnews Lebanon that the Lebanese Constitution—in its original spirit and text—does not recognize an “independent regulatory domain” that is entirely immune to legislative intervention. This stands in sharp contrast to the Constitution of the French Fifth Republic, which drew a decisive boundary between what is legislative (reserved for Parliament) and what is regulatory (reserved for the Government).
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Based on this formal criterion, the Lebanese Parliament has the right to intervene in any sector and convert any administrative matter into a binding “legislative provision” once approved, provided that this intervention does not collide with a strict constitutional text or violate fundamental rights and freedoms. Since the “decree organizing official exams” is not explicitly reserved by rigid constitutional texts, the theoretical approach grants Parliament the green light to act and cancel the exams via legislation.
The “Constitutional Red Line” and the Trap of Undermining Executive Power
On the other hand, a deeper reading of the texts reveals an unannounced constitutional brake. The absolute authority of Parliament becomes subject to invalidation if it leads to “paralyzing the procedural capacity” of the executive branch.
Jurisprudential readings obtained by our platform indicate that while Parliament possesses operational flexibility, it cannot strip the Council of Ministers of its raison d’être as an “executive authority” managing public facilities—under Article 65 of the Lebanese Constitution, which mandates the “issuance of regulatory decrees.”
Converting every administrative measure into a law practically empties government action of its substance, which is considered a violation of the spirit of the constitution based on the separation and cooperation of powers.
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The Legal Bombshell: The 4/2020 Precedent Shackles MPs
The most prominent and critical piece of information in this file, which constitutes the real obstacle to the enforcement of this law, lies in the “jurisprudential shift” brought about by the Lebanese Constitutional Council.
Our sources confirm that the debate is no longer purely academic; it has been settled by a “binding judicial precedent” established by the Constitutional Council in its famous Decision No. 4/2020. In this ruling, the Council took a step divergent from traditional Lebanese constitutional norms, recognizing—for the first time clearly—the existence of an “independent regulatory domain” that falls exclusively and implicitly within the mandate and powers of the Council of Ministers.
Based on this binding precedent, the issue of canceling or modifying official exams is classified as a “regulatory and administrative measure” that lies at the heart of the exclusive jurisdiction of the government (the Ministry of Education and the Council of Ministers). Consequently, any attempt by Parliament to enforce cancellation through a law will be considered—according to the logic of the 2020 decision—an infringement on the powers of the executive authority, rendering the law automatically void in the face of any future challenge.
Lawmakers find themselves at a dead end today. While political and humanitarian pressures push toward canceling exams through an urgent draft law, the judicial wall built by the Constitutional Council in 2020 stands in their way. Any unilateral legislative step in this regard will be nothing short of a “legal gamble” fraught with the risk of invalidation, returning the file entirely to square one: canceling exams requires a “governmental decision” from the Serail, not “legislation” from Nejmeh Square.
