Dispute erupts over Iraqi Kurdistan’s oil fields
Dispute erupts over Iraqi Kurdistan’s oil fields
Iraqi Kurdistan’s judicial council is defying the sovereignty of Iraq’s federal supreme court in a dispute over revenues from the region’s oil and gas fields.
“The oil and gas sector do not fall under the exclusive purview of the Federal Government of Iraq as stated in Article 110 of the Iraqi Constitution” said the Kurdistan judicial council in a statement on Saturday.
Iraq's federal supreme court decided in February that Kurdistan's law regulating its oil and gas industry was unconstitutional, asserting that Article 112 of the Iraqi constitution, issued in August 2005, grants the federal government authority over Kurdistan's oil and gas fields operating prior to that time.
In response, the Kurdistan judicial council stated that Iraq has no constitutionally established federal supreme court yet, as “Article 92(2) of the Constitution of Iraq requires that the Iraqi Council of Representatives pass a law to establish an Iraqi Federal Supreme Court. No such law has to date been enacted,” adding that the federal court’s decision issued in February “purporting to invalidate the Oil and Gas Law (No.22 of 2007) lacks the constitutional authority to do so and, consequentially, the Oil and Gas Law remains in full force as per the Iraqi Constitution.”
