BEIRUT: The Constitutional Court of Lebanon Wednesday repealed a law for public sector appointments passed by Parliament on grounds that it is unconstitutional.
The law, passed in May, created a merit-based mechanism for appointing senior civil servants.
President Michel Aoun had released a statement calling the law that scrapped the ability of ministers to appoint high ranking public sector employees, unconstitutional.
The statement said he would ask the Constitutional Court to repeal the law.
The law was drafted by the Lebanese Forces whose leader Samir Geagea had slammed Aoun for seeking to maintain the same logic of sectarian spoil sharing that led the country to bankruptcy and its first default in March.
The Free Patriotic Movement led by Aouns son-in-law MP Gebran Bassil had voted against the adoption of this law in Parliament.
After the passage of the law, Cabinet approved two rounds of senior civil service appointments without applying the new mechanism.
These include the appointment of six new members to Electricite du Libans board of directors, in addition to the appointment of four new deputy governors to the Central Bank, five new members to the Banking Control Commission and a government representative at the Central Bank in June.
These posts were filled using the old system, in which ministers propose candidates and Cabinet either approves, rejects or, in the absence of consensus, votes on the proposed candidates.
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