ABSTRACT
As the mandatory document had provided many of the provisions of the Treaty, so Article III of the Treaty outlined certain basic principles around which the Organic Law was to be framed. Throughout the entire period of drafting, which passed through six distinct stages before the draft Law came before the Constituent Assembly, June 14th, 1924,4 those engaged in the task had to bear in mind, therefore, not only that the document was to regulate 'Iraq's political institutions and to prescribe 'the constitutional procedure, whether legislative or executive, by which decisions shall be taken on all matters of importance' but also that it should:
Their aims seemed most easily achieved by reserving as much power as possible, including that of legislation, to the King and indirectly to the High Commissioner in his advisory capacity,3 and by removing, as far as possible, opportunities for obstructive tactics from the elective Chamber, concerning
which Mr. Dobbs, when High Commissioner, 1 was later to write:
preferable to leave the whole administrative system to be dealt with by special law which, unlike the Organic Law, can be modified from time to time in the light of experience or of fresh circumstances, rather than adhere rigidly to the Turkish system and nomenclature.' Along these lines a draft Project was drawn up in Baghdad
in the late autumn of 1921 by Major H. W. Young of the Middle East Department of the Colonial Office and by Mr. M. E. Drower, Adviser to the Ministry of Justice. 5 This first draft, for which some provisions were taken from the constitutions of Australia, New Zealand and other countries· was later
'IRAQ amplified in consultation with Mr. Nigel Davidson, Legal Secretary to the High Commissioner, with the High Commissioner himself and with the Colonial Office. 1 Mter it had been accepted in principle by King Faisal, it was taken to London by Major Young on his return in early 1922.
