Prof Steytler provides expertise to Yemen's Constitutional Drafting Committee

Prof Steytler provides expertise to Yemen's Constitutional Drafting Committee

In July, Professor Nico Steytler, the South African Research Chair in Multilevel Government, Law and Policy, based at the Community Law Centre was appointed by the United Nations Department of Political Affairs as a short term expert to support Yemeni Constitution Drafting Committee.

 After years of internecine conflict, the internationally supported National Dialogue Outcomes were concluded by January 2014. In terms of the Outcomes a 17 person Constitutional Drafting Committee (CDC) was appointed in March, the task of which is to draft a new federal constitution within a year.

In the first half of July Professor Steytler provided in Sana’a, Yemen, technical expertise to the Committee on the levels of government and the division of powers among them, the judiciary in a multilevel system of government, and the national executive.

According to news reports from Yemen, the 17-member panel is expected to implement a decentralisation plan agreed at a national conference last year to create four regions in north Yemen and two in the south. The presidential decree gives the panel one year to draw up the constitution to be put to a referendum within a year, after being adopted by a commission overseeing its work.