The Right to Participate in Political Life A Comparative Study Between Iraq and France

Right of participation in political life is one of the most important rights of the citizen. Political participation gives to the citizen the opportunity to play a role in the political life of the state through his contributions to the issuance of decisions issued by government agencies and authorities. He also has the right to participate in the different elections and referendum, he has the right of membership in elected bodies and councils, in a comprehensive way, in approving the decisions issued by the bodies and authorities in the state. Most of the constitutions of democratic countries stress the importance of this participation and its practice in a democratic climate dominated by popular sovereignty and the rule of law. The premise is that equality in the exercise of political freedoms is a way to establish the rules of peaceful life that achieve for the individual his full material and moral development as the supreme value of society. Political participation is necessary for every state because it contributes to achieving national unity and integration among its members. Political participation has also received wide attention in many international rights declarations, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights issued year 1948 AD   In the subject of our research, the Iraqi constitution issued in 2005, as well as the French constitution issued in 1958, dealt with the right of participation in political life in its forms, elections, referendums and political parties.  The structure of the study is divided into three chapters preceded by an introduction. In the first chapter, we dealt with the preliminary investigations, in the second chapter, the scope of the form of participation in political life and its legal organization in Iraq and France, and in the third chapter we dealt with political participation through elections in Iraq and France.