Constitution of the Arab Union

The Constitution of the Union of Arab Republics (Arabic: دُستور اتَّحاد الجمهوريات العربية dustūr ittiḥād al-jumhūriyāt al-‘arabīyah) is the supreme law of the Union of Arab Republics (UAR; informally known as the Arab Union). The final draft of the constitution was submitted on 10 August 1999 by the Presidium of the Arab Congress and signed into law the same day by the President of the Arab Union, replacing the de facto obsolete 1958 constitution.

It was drafted between October 1998 and July 1999 by the Constitutional Council, a semi-permanent committee of the of the Supreme Court of the Arab Union, which had begun deliberation on the drafting of a new constitution as early as 1988. The new constitution formalised the federalisation of the state and an overwhelmingly complex de facto institutional structure, which up to then had been maintained as the status quo primarily via a series of Supreme Court rulings and President Hafez al-Assad's strong, charismatic leadership.

As the foundational document of the basic law of a federation, the constitution identifies, delineates and intentionally separates the areas of jurisdiction of the federal government and the republics (the union's 20 federated states). The constitution lists by name the 20 republics which make up the union, outlines the pragmatic structure of both a republican government and the federal government, and contrasts their respective responsibilities; as the structure of republican governments are identical, the Constitution of the Arab Union acts also as the constitution of each of the 20 republics, which do not have their own separate constitutions and thus derive all legitimacy and legality from the unique constitution.

Official English translation
The 1999 constitution was written in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), the lingua franca of the Arab Union. A little-known fact about Arabic is that, like the Romance languages (the modern descendants of Latin), the multiple regional varieties of Arabic exist on a dialect–language continuum, with mutual intelligibility decreasing with distance (such that while a Palestinian will understand a Syrian despite notable differences, an Algerian and a Kuwaiti would understand little if any of the other's speech). This makes Arabic more of a language family than a single language in practice; MSA, which is based on the language of the Quran and thus very formal, is thus the answer to this problem. While not used socially by any community, it is the language of education and media, and thus understood at least reasonably well by all.

Like the 1958 constitution, the 1999 constitution was written in MSA. The Mass Communication Committee (MCC), an agency of the Ministry of Education, which is responsible for regulating MSA, translated the 1999 constitution into fourteen official foreign-language versions: English, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Persian, Hindustani, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Malay, Filipino, Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese. The official English version appears below:

section 34
i. Federal funding affecting local (municipal-level) and regional (governorate-level) institutions and programs will be allocated on a population basis, with the percentage of the national population affected equal percentage to the percentage of available federal funding received by the local or regional institution or program.

ii. Federal infrastructure and related projects will be developed by a workforce drawn from the republican public employment program; vacancies unable to be filled through the employment program after six months will be hired via other means.

iii. A Central Bureau of Statistics shall exist as an impartial and independent federal institution, with its chairman a member of the executive council of the President of the Union.

iv. A decennial national census will be conducted by the Central Bureau of Statistics. In order to minimise undercount, the decennial census will be conducted via mail, electronic mail (email) and telephone; respondents who have completed the census will each receive a unique twelve-digit confirmation number, which they must have available upon request for one month after the end of the response period (until 31 May). Respondents may submit their unique twelve-digit confirmation number at their local public administration office to receive a census-completion bonus payment valued at To minimise overcount, the decennial census will request, at minimum, the following required information: full name, date of birth, place of birth, social insurance number, current residential address, former residential address if having moved less than thirty-one days before date of response, full name and date of birth of each child (if applicable), number of adult (18 and over) occupants of residence including respondent, number of minor (under 18) occupants of residence including respondent, current employment status and occupation (if applicable), and whether also a military reservist or member of National Guard. All residents of the Union must complete the census by 30 April of census year, and may complete as early as 1 January of census year; minors may have a parent or legal guardian complete the census on their behalf. Publicly available decennial census results will be: total national population, population of individual republics, population of all municipalities (including Nasser City), average household size (at national or specific republican level), total number of active-duty servicemembers, reservists and/or members of National Guard, total number of veterans, average annual earnings (at national or specific republican level), and unemployment rate (at national or specific republican level). Publicly available decennial census results will be available on 1 July of census year.