Libya will hopefully soon begin writing its new constitution. The task, of course, is quite monumental. But compared to Egypt and Tunisia, the two other Arab Spring countries with new constitutions, Libya’s task is made more difficult by the fact that it is embarking on the construction of a modern state almost from scratch, that there is a deep struggle over federalism and centralism, the volatile status of local armed groups, and that there is very little, if any, deeply entrenched historical constitutional literature and culture to anchor the debate upon.

The country had a constitution since 1951 under the monarchy, a short document of 35 articles that brought some codification to the rights of Libyans. When the monarchy was subsequently overthrown in 1969, a constitutional declaration of 37 articles was put in place by the new “revolutionary” regime, a document meant to remain in effect until a new constitution was put in place. However, what Libyans got instead as a constitution was an infamous and horrendous piece of literature written by Moammar Gadhafi called “The Green Book,” consisting of his often ridiculous ramblings on the world and his “Third International Theory.” Finally, in August 2011, the Interim Transitional Council issued a constitutional declaration of yet again 37 articles (which has since been amended) to cover the transitional period. That document, to be sure, has not been without some controversy, but it has relatively functioned thus far.

Nevertheless, Libya also has a few ways in which it is perhaps off to a better start than Egypt. For example, out of 200 members of Libya’s parliament, 33 are women (in part because of the design of electoral law, in turn inspired from Egypt only having 2% women in about 500 parliamentary seats). The composition of the assembly is arguably more balanced, and even some of the articles of the current constitutional declaration are relatively a good blueprint to develop upon. Having closely lived through the disappointing debacle that the new Egyptian Constitution and its drafting process turned out to be, and especially so compared to the still-troubled-yet-more-promising Tunisian Constitution writing process, there are a few lessons from what I perceive to be Egypt’s failures that I humbly hope Libyans can avoid:

1. Take Your Time: Egypt’s Constitution writing process was limited by the military-written constitutional declaration to six months, with a referendum set to be in two weeks of the adoption of the final document. The assumed rationale was to limit the available time so as to force what would essentially be a limited amendment of the 1971 constitution instead of going forth with a brand new document, one whose contents and nature could prove divisive or dangerously problematic, particularly with regards to any theocratic elements. The result, however, was that the country failed to sufficiently discuss the draft constitution while it was being written and after it was adopted by the assembly, opposition and other members walked out of the assembly toward the end, and Egypt was plunged in a political conflict that nearly brought down the state and still cripples political life, with real life casualties as a result. Furthermore, a close look at the results shows a substantially divided country on that constitution, particularly as you look at more urban demographics.