On Jan. 26, 2013, the Iraqi parliament approved a law limiting to two terms the mandates of Iraqi presidents, prime ministers and parliament speakers. Since then, Iraq has witnessed an ongoing debate about the law, which passed with the votes of 170 deputies, mostly from the Iraqiyya bloc, Sadrists, the Kurdistan Alliance, and the Supreme Islamic Council. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s bloc and its allies boycotted the session.

The term-limit law is controversial because Article 72 of the Iraqi Constitution, which adopted the parliamentarian system, limits the presidential mandate to two terms but says nothing about how many terms the prime minister or the parliament speaker can have. 

As soon as the law was proposed, the State of Law coalition objected and appealed the law to the Iraqi Federal Supreme Court, questioning the legality of the parliament session that approved the law and by challenging the constitutionality of the law itself.

On March 12, the court found that the parliamentary session during which the law was passed was “legal” in form. That decision signaled the possibility that the court may reject the appeal on the constitutionality of the term-limit law itself. But the court has not yet ruled on the matter.