Law of Libya
This article needs to be updated.(December 2013) |
The law of Libya has historically been influenced by Ottoman, French, Italian, and Egyptian sources. Under the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Libya has moved towards a legal system based on sharia, but with various deviations from it.
Ottoman and Italian law
When
Law under the federal monarchy
In the 1950s under King Idris, completely new codes based on French and Italian civil law were drafted, including the Commercial Code of 1953 and the Civil Code of 1954.[1] The latter was written by Abd El-Razzak El-Sanhuri, the author of the 1948 Egyptian Civil Code, which itself was based on the French civil law, but also recognised sharia and Arab customs as a source of law.[4][5] Arab customs were ranked by Article I of the Libyan code as third as a source of law in Libya, behind sharia; this compares to its ranking of second, ahead of sharia, in other countries adopting Sanhuri codes such as Egypt and Iraq.[6] European laws were imported and applied in fields where sharia law was less developed, namely commercial law, procedural law, and penal law.[7] Islamic influence remained in some areas of commercial law too, however; Libya was the first country adopting the Sanhuri code to prohibit riba (usury).[8]
Libya maintained a dual system of courts during this period:
Post-revolutionary law
When Muammar Gaddafi came to power in the Libyan Revolution, he promised to reinstate sharia law and abrogate imported laws which contradicted Islamic values.[9] Initially, however, Article 34 of the 1969 constitution stated that all old laws remained in effect, except for those which contravened the new constitution.[10] In 1973, Gaddafi suspended all legislation, and stated that sharia would be the law of the land, however Gaddafis sharia was based only in the quran and not in a classical Muslim legalistic source of fiqh. It could hence be considered a new form fiqh.[11] The dual-court system was also abolished that year, replaced by a single court system which aimed to bring together Islamic and secular principles.[12] However, by 1974, progress in the Islamicisation of the law had come to a halt.[13]
One area in particular in which Libyan laws are inconsistent with sharia is in the penal law, where the punishments are lighter than those mandated by traditional
See also
- Petroleum Law of 1955
- Copyright Law of 1968 on Wikisource
- Constitution of Libya (1951)
- Constitution of Libya (1969)
- Libyan interim Constitutional Declaration
- The Law Society of Libya
Notes
- ^ a b c Otman & Karlberg 2007, p. 63
- ^ Ahmida 2009, p. 35
- ^ Ahmida 2009, pp. 91–93
- ^ Bechor 2007, p. 57
- ^ Thomas 2006, p. 72
- ^ Bechor 2007, p. 278
- ^ a b Mayer 1990, pp. 100–101
- ^ Thomas 2006, p. 85
- ^ Mayer 1990, pp. 101–102
- ^ Otman & Karlberg 2007, p. 64
- ^ a b Mayer 1990, p. 102
- ^ Otman & Karlberg 2007, p. 66
- ^ Mayer 1990, p. 111
- ^ a b Vandewalle 2006, p. 126
- ^ Haddad & Stowasser 2004, p. 151
- ^ Vandewalle 2006, p. 123
- ^ Mayer 1990, p. 105
- ^ Vandewalle 2006, p. 122
- ^ a b Mayer 1990, p. 106
Sources
- Ahmida, Ali Abdullatif (2009), The making of modern Libya: state formation, colonization, and resistance, SUNY Press, ISBN 978-1-4384-2891-8
- Bechor, Guy (2007), The Sanhūrī Code, and the emergence of modern Arab civil law (1932 to 1949), Brill, ISBN 978-90-04-15878-8
- Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck; Stowasser, Barbara Freyer (2004), Islamic law and the challenges of modernity, Rowman Altamira, ISBN 978-0-7591-0671-0
- Mayer, Ann Elizabeth (1990), "Reinstating Islamic Criminal Law in Libya", in Dwyer, Daisy Hilse (ed.), Law and Islam in the Middle East, Greenwood Publishing Group, pp. 99–115, ISBN 978-0-89789-151-6
- Otman, Waniss A.; Karlberg, Erling (2007), "The Libyan Legal System and Key Recent Legislation", The Libyan Economy: economic diversification and international repositioning, Springer, pp. 63–86, ISBN 978-3-540-46460-0
- Thomas, Abdulkader S. (2006), Interest in Islamic economics: understanding riba, Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-34242-1
- Vandewalle, Dirk J. (2006), A history of modern Libya, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-85048-3
External links
- (in Arabic) Full text of Libyan laws at the site of the General People's Committee for Justice (Libyan governmental body)
- English translation of the 1969 Constitution Archived 2011-08-11 at the Wayback Machine