A Constitutional Framework of a Future Palestinian State - Synthesis of Leading Palestinian Thinking and Public Perceptions

Abstract

The Palestinian Authority (hereinafter the PA) 1 is a good example of the contradictions inherent in the role of a constitution and its place in a particular (non-state, pre-state or quasistate) legal system. At present, there is a Basic Law (hereinafter the BL) which is enforced in the territory under PA control, and a Draft Palestinian Constitution (hereinafter the DPC) is also circulating. 2 At the same time, the 1968 Palestinian National Charter (hereinafter the Charter) remains, formally, in force, although considered by many as 'old fashioned' since it renounced the armed resistance as a means to national liberation (Nofal 1997, 87). Furthermore, the Palestine Liberation Organization (hereinafter the PLO) unilaterally proclaimed the establishment of a new independent state called the ‘State of Palestine’ in 1988 but this did not lead directly to the realization of statehood. Therefore it remains an aspiration and future objective as the Israeli occupation persists and the ‘State of Palestine’ has still to be established. Throughout this report, reference will be made to both the BL and the DPC as these documents represent the current and the future Palestinian constitutional framewor