Kirkuk council member calls bid to freeze provincial councils unconstitutional

KIRKUK, Iraq — A member of the Kirkuk Provincial Council, Ahmed Fath al-Kirkuki, has rejected a move by a group of Iraqi lawmakers to suspend the work and budgets of provincial councils, calling the effort unlawful. Speaking on Tuesday, al-Kirkuki said the councils were not established by government decision but derive their administrative and financial authorities from Article 122 of the Iraqi Constitution. Al-Kirkuki argued that the existence of provincial councils rests on a constitutional basis, and that any abolition would require a constitutional amendment. He said legal action could be taken against an individual council that failed in its duties, but added that all provincial councils and the citizens who elected them cannot be lumped together. He recalled that provincial councils were temporarily frozen in 2019 but resumed activity because of their constitutional grounding. Al-Kirkuki warned that freezing their budgets would also require constitutional and legal authority and would directly affect the work of local institutions and the services delivered to citizens. No further details on the lawmakers' petition were immediately available.