Republican governments of the Arab Union

The Union of Arab Republics (UAR; informally known as the Arab Union) is a federation of 20 republics, each of which shares sovereignty with the union as a whole and has its own republican government (Arabic: حكومة جمهورية ḥukūmah jamhūrīyah; def. pl. الحكومات الجمهورية al-ḥukūmāt al-jamhūrīyah), consisting of three branches: an executive branch, a legislative branch, and a judicial branch. The executive branch consists of the multiple ministries and subordinate agencies which answer to the republican Council of Ministers, the highest executive body in a republican government, which is led by the republic's premier (the head of government of a republic). The unicameral legislative assembly known as a "republican congress" is the legislative branch of a republican government, and has jurisdiction over all domestic legislation except for criminal law, which is instead the exclusive purview of the federal Arab Congress. Finally, the judicial branch of consists of a hierarchy of multiple district courts which hear the majority of cases, and which are subordinate to the republic's supreme court, the highest judicial institution in a republic; while criminal law is legislated exclusively at the federal level, its application is actually handled primarily by the republican judicial hierarchy, with the only permanent federal courts being the Supreme Court of the Arab Union and the subordinate Court of Appeals, which only hear cases affecting two or more republics, the union as a whole, national security, other federal matters, as well as appeals of verdicts of republican supreme courts (for the Court of Appeals).

The republican governments derive their legitimacy from the Constitution of the Arab Union, which lists individually the 20 republics, makes clear their shared sovereignty with the union, and defines and delineates the respective responsibilities and areas of jurisdiction of the republican governments and the federal government, with minimal overlap. The federal government primarily concerns itself with foreign affairs and international relations, foreign trade, military defence, and national security; by contrast, most domestic matters come under republican jurisdiction, the main exceptions being healthcare and education, which are handled by the federal government to ensure the uniformity of these services' quality and accessibility across all republics as well as territories of the Arab Union.

Unlike the 20 republics, the territories of the Arab Union do not share sovereignty with the federation, and are subject to the unilateral authority of the federal government. However, 11 of the Arab Union's 23 territories have a devolved assembly called a "territorial congress", which elects both an executive premier and a territorial judiciary, which via the devolved statute granted by the Arab Congress retain authority over the respective territory comparable to that of republican governments. Such territories are referred to as organised territories, with the remaining unorganised territories having no governmental authority of their own, instead directly administered by the federal government. However, even organised territories can have their devolved government abolished unilaterally by the federal government, as their autonomy is not constitutionally entrenched but dependent on legislation passed by the federal Arab Congress, which can be rescinded at any time; nevertheless, no organised territory has to this date been unilaterally reverted to an unorganised territory or abolished in any other way by the federal government, essentially making the 11 organised territories in practice similarly autonomous to the 20 republics.