Report: De-Ba'athification decision overturned

Iraqi president Jalal Talabani at a press conference in Baghdad (file).

Update, 10:58 a.m.: Al-Jazeera has some more detail about the decision, as does Marc Lynch.

It's worth noting that Iraqi president Jalal Talabani played a key role in pushing this crisis towards a political solution.

Update, 10:23 a.m.: Just to clarify, the bit about post-election review wasn't in the Al-Rafidayn story I linked; it is, however, in several other sources, including Al-Arabiya (عربي) and the BBC Arabic service (عربي). Everyone's quoting Hamidiyya Husseini, a spokeswoman for the Independent High Electoral Commission. Rough translation from Reuters:

"The appeals panel decided to allow the banned candidates to participate in the next election and decided to postpone looking into the case until after the election," Hamdiya al-Husseini, a member of the Independent High Electoral Commission, said.

The candidates would not be able to assume office if they win until the panel has given a final ruling on their cases, she said.

Also, Michael Hanna tips me off to something I missed in the Rafidayn story (linked below): Ali Faysal al-Lami, the head of the Justice and Accountability Commission, says he respects the appellate decision -- but that it's not binding, and he doesn't necessarily have to follow it.

Update, 10:00 a.m.: Details of the decision are starting to come out (عربي). It's a little nuanced -- and it actually bears some resemblance to Joe Biden's proposed (and rejected) compromise.

All of the candidates barred by the Justice and Accountability Commission will be allowed to run in the March 7 election. If they are elected, though, the appellate court will review their records for links to the Ba'ath Party; if any such links are found, the votes will be invalidated, and the candidates will not be allowed to take office.

So it's very similar to Biden's proposal to delay the de-Ba'athification decisions until after the election.

It's certainly a step in the right direction. The big question now is how many of the 766 barred candidates will agree to run under these rules. (A spokesman for the Iraqiyya coalition, the biggest victim of the de-Ba'athification decision, said he was satisfied with the decision.)

Original post: We'll have more on this in a bit, but the BBC is reporting that an Iraqi appeals court completely overturned the de-Ba'athification ban.

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