"The Role of Legislative Policy and Administrative Implementation Mechanisms in Achieving Distributive Justice for Public Services in Iraq"

Abstract

This research examines the relationship between legislative policy and administrative implementation mechanisms as the decisive relationship in producing distributive justice for public services in Iraq. It proceeds from the hypothesis that the problem of service distribution in Iraq is not the result of resource scarcity alone, nor of an administrative dysfunction isolated from its legal environment, but rather stems from a structural gap between constitutional and legislative texts on one hand, and implementation institutions along with monitoring, oversight, and funding mechanisms on the other. Within this framework, the research analyzes how the Constitution of the Republic of Iraq of 2005 and the amended Law of Governorates Not Incorporated into a Region No. (21) of 2008 outlined the contours of administrative decentralization, and how the executive translation of these contours faltered due to overlapping jurisdictions, weak coordination between the center and the governorates, the dominance of operational expenditures, corruption, political instability, and the fluctuation of public spending priorities, The research adopted the legal analytical method, conducting a critical reading of constitutional texts, laws, official documents, and peer-reviewed studies in a manner that links legal norms to administrative outcomes. It concluded that distributive justice for public services in Iraq remains contingent upon four interrelated conditions: first, clear, stable, and enforceable legislation; second, a coordinated administrative apparatus possessing genuine rather than merely formal authority; third, financial and oversight systems that ensure equitable allocation and spending efficiency; and fourth, a flexible centralized/decentralized executive monitoring mechanism capable of translating plans into measurable outcomes. The research also concluded that reforming distributive justice does not pass through general advocacy for either decentralization or centralization, but rather through re-engineering the relationship between the two on the basis of clear jurisdictional competence, open data, accountability, and sectoral performance indicators.