AP Worldstream
03-06-2006 Government says it dissolved Bar Association, members deny it
Dateline: BAGHDAD, Iraq
The government has dissolved the Iraq Bar Association, naming a five-member committee to run the organization until elections for a new board are held next month, a Cabinet statement said on Monday. The head of the association challenged the legality of the move.
The Shiite-dominated government statement did not say when or why the association was dissolved but said the five-member committee took over on orders of the Justice Minister issued on Jan. 26.
Members of the board are known to be outspoken critics of the foreign occupation as well as the government. They have also criticized the conduct of Saddam Hussein's trial.
Bar Association head Kamal Hamdoun said members were still in control of their offices. "The government is depending on the law of force while we depend on the force of the law," he said.
Minister of state for civil society affairs, Alaa Habib, said lawyers who want to run the Bar Association elections should declare their candidacy before Sunday for April 13 voting.
Habib said more than 50 judges, three in each of Iraq's 18 provinces except for Baghdad which will have more, will supervise the elections.
One of the five-member committee that was chosen to run the association, Tariq Harb, said elections for Bar Association officers were to have taken place every two years. The last vote was in August 2003.
He suggested that the current board was acting outside the law because it was now seven months past the required date for new elections.
Bar Association secretary Diya al-Saadi said the government had dissolved the board because it wanted to eradicate its independent status and put in place members beholden to the government.
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