Lebanon’s unimplemented Senate: A constitutional reform still frozen since the Taif Agreement

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Lebanon 27-04-2026 | 11:00

Lebanon’s unimplemented Senate: A constitutional reform still frozen since the Taif Agreement

Three decades after Taif, the envisioned Senate—meant to shift sectarian balance and enable non-sectarian parliamentary elections—remains a suspended reform with unresolved questions over its role, powers, and sectarian leadership.
Manal Chaaya
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Lebanon’s unimplemented Senate: A constitutional reform still frozen since the Taif Agreement
Lebanese flag. (Archive, Houssam Shbaro)
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It is the Taif Agreement, and there is a renewed awareness today of the need to implement it, 37 years after its adoption in the Lebanese Parliament.

 

Many of its provisions remain unimplemented, including the Senate, which is one of the main reform measures outlined in the Taif Agreement.

 

For all these years, the Senate has remained a paper institution within the Lebanese political system.

 

The question is: if the presidency of the Senate is ever established, is it assigned to either of the two sects, the Druze or the Orthodox? More fundamentally, is there any constitutional or legal text that specifies the sect of the Senate presidency? Druze or Orthodox?

 

 

What the constitutional text says

 

 

Constitutional expert Dr. Said Malek reveals that there is certainly no text stating that the Senate is for the Druze. He notes that during the discussions of the National Reconciliation Document held in Taif, this matter was indeed raised and discussed as a specific point. However, no provision was ever adopted specifying that the Senate must be chaired by a Druze, an Orthodox, or any other sect.

 

In politics, Marwan Abou Fadel, the former MP and Secretary-General of the "Orthodox Gathering," starts from two readings or hypotheses, leading to two outcomes.

 

In a first reading, Abou Fadel considers that, according to the constitutional text, it is expected that after the establishment of the Parliament on a non-sectarian basis, a Senate should also be elected on a national, non-sectarian basis.

 

Does this mean that the sect allocated to the presidency of the House of Representatives is automatically removed from the Shiites once the Senate is established? There is no definitive answer. However, logically, when the sect of one of the three presidencies is dropped, the arrangements of the other two presidencies would also follow accordingly.

 

According to this hypothesis, the presidency of the Senate becomes rotating among all sects.

 

 

The Fourth Presidency

 

In a second reading, Abou Fadel assumes that if custom—which often carries the force of law—is to ensure fair and respectful representation of all sects, then the presidency of the Parliament would remain with the Shiite sect, in line with respecting the sects of the first and second presidencies. In that case, the fourth presidency would be assigned to the Orthodox sect, meaning the Senate would be chaired by an Orthodox. Consequently, under this scenario, the presidencies of the Parliament and the Council of Ministers would go to a Druze and a Catholic respectively

 

Hence, which of the two equations can be applied if the Senate is indeed established?

 

Abou Fadel answers: “The most important thing about these readings is that any discussion should take place at the appropriate time and on the basis of these hypotheses, so that the discussion is serious and productive. Topics should not be placed randomly or arbitrarily on the political discussion tables.

 

According to Article 22 of the Constitution, with the election of the first House of Representatives on a non-sectarian national basis, a Senate shall be established in which the spiritual families are represented, and it is entrusted with the examination of major issues.

 

The main purpose behind this transformation or transition is to move the sectarian quota from the legislative House of Representatives to the Senate, thereby allowing parliamentary elections to be freed from sectarian restrictions. The Senate would function as a mechanism to balance between sectarian representation and the civil state, with its powers limited to major issues such as the Constitution, electoral laws, foreign relations, and national defense.

 

This is in the text, but in reality, the Senate has remained, until now, a suspended constitutional institution tied to the establishment of the national body for the abolition of political sectarianism, and it has “remained suspended” like many fundamental structural reforms aimed at improving the political system.

Tags
Taif Agreement ، Lebanon ، Saudi Arabia ، Senate ، Constitution ، House of Representatives