Challenges and Solutions for the Iraqi and Egyptian Governments in Preventing Abuse of Government Power

Abstract

This study examines the legal, constitutional, and institutional mechanisms designed to prevent abuse of governmental power in Iraq and Egypt from a comparative public law perspective. The analysis focuses on the relationship between formal legal safeguards and their practical effectiveness, particularly in the areas of parliamentary oversight, constitutional adjudication, administrative judicial review, independent supervisory institutions, anti-corruption mechanisms, transparency, and civil-service accountability. The study adopts a comparative descriptive-analytical approach to identify the principal similarities and differences between the two systems and to determine the political, legal, and institutional factors that weaken the control of executive and administrative power. The findings indicate that both Iraq and Egypt possess substantial formal mechanisms for limiting governmental authority, but the effectiveness of these mechanisms is constrained by different structural conditions. In Iraq, political fragmentation, partisan allocation, institutional instability, and politicization of oversight bodies reduce the consistency and independence of accountability mechanisms. In Egypt, the concentration of executive authority, limitations affecting parliamentary autonomy, and challenges related to the practical implementation of judicial decisions weaken the restraining capacity of existing legal institutions. The study further finds that judicial independence, effective administrative review, transparent governmental decision-making, access to information, professional civil-service structures, and autonomous anti-corruption institutions are essential to preventing abuse of power. It concludes that reform should not be limited to adopting additional constitutional or statutory provisions. Instead, both systems require stronger implementation mechanisms, clearer institutional competencies, enforceable judicial decisions, more effective parliamentary scrutiny, improved transparency, and greater insulation of supervisory institutions from political interference. Although the two countries share common rule-of-law challenges, reform strategies must respond to their distinct institutional and political contexts.