President Mahmoud Abbas and his government are rewriting economic, social and security laws for the Palestinian territories with little public oversight, Palestinian and Western officials say. Reuters has obtained hundreds of Abbas decrees and a five-year legislative plan that could transform the Palestinian political and economic systems from top to bottom, yet which few of the four million residents of the territories have heard of. Many of the proposed changes have long been sought by liberal reformers and could help promote foreign investment, but some constitutional experts and legislators contend that Abbas's approach to legislating by decree lacks transparency and is part of an erosion of democratic institutions. Some say Palestinian democracy, once held up as a model for other Arabs, has been suspended – both in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Abbas is based at Ramallah, and in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas seized full control a year ago. A government spokesman defended the strategy as a necessity following last year's rift between Abbas's Fatah movement and Hamas that paralysed parliament. The official said parliament would eventually be able to revise any or all of the new laws. Hundreds of presidential decrees and other decisions have been issued by Abbas and his prime minister, Salam Fayyad, since June 2007. That month, Abbas dismissed an elected Hamas-led government after Hamas routed the president's Fatah faction in Gaza. He appointed his own administration in the West Bank. Fayyad's five-year plan envisages sweeping new laws covering six areas, documents show – economy, civil administration, infrastructure, culture and media, judiciary and social sector. The 406 orders issued by Abbas and his government between June 2007 and June 2008, obtained by Reuters, show changes, big and small, covering anything from the budget to the tax code to the make-up of secretive military courts. Along with dozens of awards, promotions and dismissals were new rules for Palestinian lending institutions, sweeping tax breaks for investors and businesses, and expanded powers for the Interior Ministry, which oversees the security forces. Presidential aides say Abbas may rule by decree under the Basic Law when parliament, the Legislative Council, cannot meet. A year after Abbas succeeded the late Yasser Arafat as president, Hamas won a parliamentary election in Jan. 2006.
