Asharq Al-Awsat: The Lebanese presidential vacuum does not reflect a vacuum in the institutions

Al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper wrote: With the start of the countdown to the end of the term of the Lebanese President, Michel Aoun, and the decline in hopes day after day of the possibility of forming a new government headed by Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati. Questions arise about what will be the situation after Aoun leaves the presidential palace at the end of next October, and what will be the limits of the powers of the caretaker government headed by Mikati, which some consider an “incomplete” government.
President Aoun had previously announced that he would not stay in Baabda Palace for one day after the end of his term, while President Mikati had previously affirmed that in the face of basic matters he would not fail to invite the Cabinet to convene when necessary, but the question remains about the extent of “this necessity,” especially Lebanon will face important benefits, from the agreement with the International Monetary Fund and the negotiations for the demarcation of the maritime borders with Israel, to basic decisions that are directly related to the lives of citizens in light of the worsening crises under which they are languishing.
While the information began to indicate the direction of the “Free Patriotic Movement” to take a decision to withdraw its ministers from the originally resigned government, and thus make it “non-charter”, in refusal to transfer the powers of the President of the Republic to the government, Rashid Derbas, the former Minister of Justice and the former North Bar Syndicate, stops on this matter. He explained to Asharq Al-Awsat from a constitutional point of view, by saying: “Article 62 of the constitution states that if the presidency is vacant for any reason, the powers of the president of the republic are delegated to the Council of Ministers collectively,” without indicating whether the government has full powers or In the business phase. Here, Derbas asserts that “there is no vacuum in the constitution, for it organized the presidential elections and clarified how to run the country if these elections do not take place, and therefore there is no difference between an ordinary government or a caretaker government regarding the powers of the President of the Republic, which are transferred to the government together without To adhere to the idea of ​​conducting business, which applies to the tasks of the government only, which in turn is subject to jurisprudence, and not to the powers of the President of the Republic.
While Derbas, who is close to Mikati, rules out forming a government before the presidential elections, he asserts that “the president-designate’s goal is not to profit, but to reduce political and non-political losses.” At the same time, he recalls what Mikati had previously announced that he would not hesitate to invite the Council of Ministers to meet in cases and issues that require taking important and fateful decisions in the country.
On the other hand, constitutional expert Paul Morcos, head of the human rights “Justicia Foundation”, considers that the boundaries of the caretaker government narrow more when a presidential vacuum occurs. He believes that “the government’s failure to emerge from the new parliament renders its representation under-represented.”
He explained to Asharq Al-Awsat, saying: “The government exercises the powers of the President of the Republic as an agency in accordance with Article 62 of the Constitution when the presidency becomes vacant. But if it is essentially a resigned government, i.e. a caretaker, then the originally narrow limits of the conduct of business by virtue of Article 64, paragraph 2 of the Constitution are narrowing more and more, which means that the present government can perform the very necessary tasks of the president, which the public interest requires to do in order to avoid being annexed Damage to the public utilities, which are the administrative powers that cannot be postponed and that must be carried out immediately under the circumstances.”
Morcos says: “The inability of the present government to expand the concept of conducting business increases, that this government emanated from the previous parliament and thus gained confidence from a parliament that has changed, meaning that its representation is under-represented for this party.” However, what balances this, according to Morcos, is that the caretaker period, if it lasts, expands this concept a little, and the second thing that balances is that the head of the caretaker government, on which the mandatory parliamentary consultations have settled, is the same as the head of the caretaker government.
Knowing that if a presidential vacuum occurs, according to expectations that exclude the election of a president of the republic within the constitutional deadline set at the end of October, it will be the first time in which such a case is recorded, i.e. a presidential vacuum under a caretaker government, after Lebanon lived for about two and a half years. The presidential vacuum phase after the end of President Michel Suleiman’s term and before Aoun’s election as president in 2016. At that time, Tammam Salam’s government, which had full powers, took over the administration of the country, including issuing decrees that were the prerogative of the President of the Republic.