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Last weekend, John Kincaid, Meyner Professor of Government and Public Service and Director of the MeynerCenter for the Study of State and Local Government, helped 35 Iraqi officials consider how to best achieve judicial independence and federalism in the Republic of Iraq.
Kincaid participated in the “Safeguarding Judicial Independence in a Federal Iraq” conference held in Istanbul, Turkey Sept. 15-17. The conference was sponsored by the United States Institute of Peace, Washington, D.C., and the International Institute for the Rule of Law, a non-profit, non-governmental organization in Baghdad, Iraq.
As one of five international experts from the United States, Canada, Austria, and Malaysia, Kincaid served as an advisor for those in attendance including the chief justice of Iraq’s federal Supreme Court, lower court judges, law professors, and parliament members.
The group discussed how the judicial system should be organized, in order to ensure that the courts became and remained independent. Kincaid, as his expertise falls in this area, discussed federalism.
Also discussed were the terrorist threats plaguing the system. Many courts are not running due to threats on the judges’ lives and other dangerous activity. While most of these judges retain security, they still open themselves up to risk in other areas of their lives.
“I feel that these people are very courageous. The chief justice’s son was assassinated, and a parliament member’s son was assassinated about a month ago,” Kincaid says. “Almost all have had a family member or someone close to them killed by terrorists, and most have sent the rest of their families out of the country because they are all targets. Yet, these men are still committed to rebuilding the country and its judicial system. It’s really amazing.”
The conference met despite tension concerning the Kurds, who already have their own court system in place and are not anxious for the new government system to intrude.
There is also conflict with the clergy, who had only one representative at the conference. The Iraqi constitution states that the Iraqi Supreme Court should have four experts in Sharia Law on the court but that they will not get a vote. Sharia Law is a religious code for living. It denotes an Islamic way of life that is more than a system of criminal justice.
The constitution also states that no law can be passed that violates Islamic law, as Iraq is a Muslim country. These regulations put judges and clergy at odds, and could possibly create a standstill concerning creating laws about delicate issues.
“This is an issue that we in the United States don’t even think about, as we have a separation of church and state,” Kincaid says. “Politically speaking, this is going to be hard to change.”
The group was scheduled to work all day Friday and Saturday and only a half-day on Sunday followed by a tour of Istanbul. The discussions ran so long, however, that they broke for the three hour tour on Sunday and then came back afterwards to finish, staying late into the night.
The result was a list of recommendations for the Iraqi Parliament and suggested constitutional amendments and/or laws to be passed to ensure judicial independence.
Kincaid describes Iraqi sentiments about the United States as disappointed.
“While they are happy with the overthrow of Saddam [Hussein], they still feel let down by the U.S.,” Kincaid says. “With all the corruption and the lack of security, they are just hoping they can handle this on their own.”
Due to the tension and division, he says, it is hard to really be optimistic about the situation.
“They’re really working against the odds,” Kincaid says. “But, due to the current state of affairs, I think it is important that we try to make the best of the reconstruction [of Iraq]. I would hope to contribute in some small way to the success of the rule of law and democracy in Iraq.”
A large portion of Kincaid’s career has been dedicated to furthering the spread of federal forms of government around the world.
He is senior editor of the Global Dialogue on Federalism, a series of volumes on comparative federalism, and served as co-editor of the first book, Constitutional Origins, Structure, and Change in Federal Countries, published in 2005. A second volume, Distribution of Powers and Responsibilities in Federal Countries, came out in January.
He was named Distinguished Federalism Scholar in 2001 by the American Political Science Association, recognizing his outstanding contributions to the study of federalism and intergovernmental relations. The association is the major professional society for American political scientists.
President of the International Association of Centers for Federal Studies from 1998-2005, Kincaid has lectured and consulted on issues of federalism, intergovernmental relations, constitutionalism, and regional and local governance in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.
He is the author of various works on federalism and intergovernmental relations, served as editor of Publius: The Journal of Federalism from 1981-2005 – a quarterly scholarly journal with a worldwide readership – and editor of a 50-book series, Governments and Politics of the American States.
Kincaid served as executive director of the bipartisan U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations in Washington, D.C., from 1987-94, when he joined the Lafayette faculty. He is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.
He is a recipient of the Donald Stone Distinguished Scholar Award from the Section on Intergovernmental Administration and Management of the American Society of Public Administration; coeditor of The Covenant Connection: From Federal Theology to Modern Federalism (2000); coeditor of Competition Among States and Local Governments: Efficiency and Equity in American Federalism (1991); editor of Political Culture, Public Policy and the American States (1982); and author of other scholarly works.
He has also mentored numerous students in EXCEL, honors and independent study research. David Stamm ’08 (Holland, Pa.), a government and law major, worked with Kincaid while researching the Bush administration’s attention to federalism and the federal relationship with state and local governments. Sandamali Wijeratne ’06 (Mt. Lavinia, Sri Lanka), who graduated with an A.B. with majors in English and international affairs, looked for a solution to the strife of her native land with Kincaid as her honors thesis advisor.