Iraq's top Shi'ite Muslim cleric
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called on parliament and Prime
Minister Haider al-Abadi on Friday to focus their
anti-corruption campaign first on improving the judiciary.
Parliament unanimously approved a sweeping reform plan this
week proposed by Abadi in the biggest shake-up in the country's
governing system since the 2003-2011 U.S. military occupation.
Abadi has sought to transform a system which critics say has
encouraged graft and incompetence, depriving Iraqis of basic
services while undermining government forces in the battle
against Islamic State insurgents.
The initiative, announced after Sistani pushed Abadi to
"strike with an iron fist" against corruption, eliminates entire
layers of government, scraps sectarian and party quotas for
state positions, reopens corruption investigations and gives the
premier the power to fire regional and provincial bosses.
In his first public comments since the measures were
announced, Sistani called judicial reform "one of the most
important aspects of the reform process".
"It is not possible to achieve true reform without it. Even
if corruption has spread to the judiciary, there is no small
number of honest judges whose hands have not been tainted and
will not hesitate to achieve justice," his spokesman, Sheikh
Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalai, said in a Friday sermon.
Part of Abadi's campaign calls for a committee of judges
known for their integrity to investigate and prosecute corrupt
officials who he has accused of plotting sabotage to preserve
their privileges.
The governing system set up under the U.S. occupation
included numerous overlapping senior posts, many set aside to be
divvied up on ethnic and sectarian grounds among Iraq's majority
Shi'ites and minority Sunni Muslims and Kurds.
That was intended to reduce strife by keeping the government
inclusive. But Abadi, a Shi'ite, complained it encouraged
ethno-sectarian party patronage, spawning corruption and
incompetence so pervasive it made Iraq nearly impossible to
govern.
Critics have accused Abadi of trying to consolidate too much
power in his own hands, which he denies.
"We do not wish to reinstate a political system where there
is only one leader and everyone else is insignificant," Abadi
said at a youth forum on Thursday, an allusion to Saddam Hussein
who was overthrown in the U.S.-led 2003 invasion. "This is the
return of dictatorship and we do not want it."
Sistani also called for reforming the security services
following a massive bombing in a Shi'ite district of Baghdad on
Thursday claimed by Islamic State, and for reducing inequality
in the salaries of public employees.
"It is unacceptable that some major officials make tens of
millions in salary every month, while many employees do not make
more than 300,000 dinars ($261.32)," Karbalai said.
($1 = 1,148.0000 Iraqi dinars)
REUTERS