The Basic Law

The Basic Law was not only mandated in the interim agreements, but was clearly viewed by Palestinian leaders and legislators as a priority; Even before the election of the Legislative Council, a Palestinian legal expert, Dr Anis al-Qasem, was instructed by PLO Chairman Arafat to draw up a draft Basic Law (al-Qasem 1996).

From the first draft produced by the elected Palestinian Legislative Council, tensions in secular discourse and social vision were revealed. Almost immediately, the separate article on equal rights for women and men, cited above, disappeared and there remained only a general statement against discrimination on any grounds in Article 9: All Palestinians are equal before the law and the judiciary, without any discrimination between them in respect to rights and obligations on the grounds of race, ethnicity, sex, race, religion, political opinion or disability’ (PLC 2000).

This provision also existed in al-Qasem ^,s drafting of the Basic Law; the elim­ination of Article 10 was thus a conscious ‘backgrounding’ of gender equality. Indeed, council members opposed to the retention of Article 10 argued that there was no need for a special article on equality between women and men, adding, in a all-too-familiar simile, ‘then why not a separate article for children or the disabled?’ Only a handful of members, including several female PLC members and leftists, argued to keep the gender equality provision (interview with Dr Azmi Shuaibi, 2000).

The anti-discrimination article is similar to a provision in the Palestinian Declaration of Independence, proclaimed by the Palestinian National Council in November 1988, which affirmed that ‘governance will be based on principles of social justice, equality and non-discrimination in public rights on the grounds of race, religion, colour, or sex’ (Lockman and Beinin 1989: 389), but does not use the problematic notion of ‘public rights’, which might imply that rights within the family are excluded. The Basic Law’s provision, however, does not refer to social justice. While both exclusions may not have been deliberate, we can conclude that the process of articulating equality and non-discrimination constitutionally is somewhat troubled in the Palestinian context - and almost certainly not complete.