Syria’s Transitional Parliament Sworn In as Constitutional Lawyer Abdul Hamid al-Awak Elected Speaker
Syria’s newly formed People’s Assembly held its inaugural session on Sunday, July 12, taking the constitutional oath in a ceremony attended by President Ahmad al-Sharaa and marking the first legislative milestone since the fall of the Assad regime. The session combined the swearing-in of members with the election of the assembly’s presidential council, culminating in the selection of Dr. Abdul Hamid Aqil al-Awak, a constitutional lawyer and former judge, as Speaker.
A New Chamber, Built on a Transitional Formula
The 210-seat assembly was established under Decree No. 143 of 2025, which set the legal framework for legislative authority during Syria’s transition. Under that arrangement, one-third of the seats — 70 in total — were filled by presidential appointment, while the remaining 140 were occupied by members chosen through electoral colleges across Syria’s governorates. Sunday’s opening session brought together both appointed and elected members in line with the Constitutional Declaration governing the transitional period.
Judge Mohammad Taha al-Ahmad, Chairman of the Higher Election Committee, called the gathering a defining historical moment, crediting it to “the bravery of our heroes and the resilience of mothers” and describing the committee’s work as fulfilling an extraordinary democratic responsibility.
In his keynote address to the assembly, President Sharaa spoke of humanity’s long search for the best way to manage collective interests, arguing that mutual acceptance and consensus are the most effective tools for overcoming division. He urged lawmakers to place public duty above personal interest and to turn parliament into a model of responsibility and competence, describing it as a platform for truth, justice, and national accountability.
Al-Awak Elected Speaker in Contested Vote
Also attending the session were Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani and Interior Minister Anas Khattab. Amid the ceremony, members proceeded to elect the assembly’s leadership, with al-Awak securing 99 of the 206 votes cast for Speaker. His closest rival, Moayad Hayel al-Qiblawi, won 75 votes, while Mohammed Ramez Koraj received 31; one ballot was left blank. The result placed a scholar of constitutional law — rather than a figure tied to a political or armed faction — at the head of Syria’s first post-Assad legislature.
From the Bench to the Opposition
Born in 1966 in Hasakah’s Ghwayran district, al-Awak studied law at the University of Aleppo before pursuing postgraduate work in Lebanon, where he earned a diploma in public law and a master’s in administrative law, later completing a doctorate in constitutional law at Beirut Arab University focused on how the Arab uprisings reshaped presidential power in Tunisia and Egypt.
He began his career in the legal affairs department of the Tigris and Khabur Basin Directorate before joining the Syrian judiciary, eventually rising to counsellor within the Ministry of Justice. By his own account, he refused to order the detention of demonstrators brought before him after the 2011 uprising began, and intervened on behalf of protesters arrested by other courts — a stance that drew pressure from state security and led him to leave Syria for Turkey in 2014.
In exile, al-Awak became a prominent legal and academic voice in the opposition, advising the Stabilisation Support Unit, contributing to studies on Syria’s future constitution, and serving on the Syrian Constitutional Committee as a representative of the Syrian Negotiations Commission — a post he left in 2018 over the political process’s lack of progress. He also taught law, political science, and international relations, first at Al-Furat University and later at Turkey’s Mardin Artuklu University from 2016 onward.
Return to Syria and the Constitutional Declaration
Al-Awak returned to Syria after Assad’s fall in December 2024, initially leading the Faculty of Law at the University of Aleppo on an interim basis. In March 2025, President Sharaa appointed him to head the committee drafting Syria’s transitional constitutional declaration — a document al-Awak has consistently described as an interim instrument meant to prevent an institutional vacuum, not a permanent settlement. He has argued that a lasting constitution should instead emerge from an elected constituent assembly followed by a national referendum, and that revolutionary legitimacy gives way to constitutional order once such a declaration is in place.
Throughout his public statements, al-Awak has championed equal citizenship over sectarian quota systems, defended the separation of powers, and warned against allowing the executive to absorb legislative or judicial functions — principles that will now be tested directly in his new role.
A Heavy Institutional Burden
The assembly begins its work in a country emerging from decades of one-party rule and a devastating war that hollowed out state institutions and the economy. Its tasks include building the legal scaffolding of the transition, overseeing government spending, and guarding against the re-emergence of authoritarian practice. Analysts note that al-Awak’s central challenge will be preserving the legislature’s independence from a historically dominant executive — a test that will likely come with parliament’s first serious dispute with the government or its first piece of divisive legislation.
Illustration: Grok