The Civil State in Lebanon: An Inevitable Outcome of Sectarian Pluralism
The prevailing public discourse in Lebanon is dominated by the notion that “sectarianism” constitutes the root cause of the country’s political crises and that the only solution lies in abolishing sectarianism and transitioning to a civil state.
Through a constitutional lens, this paper examines and challenges this prevailing assertion by demonstrating that the legal structure of the Lebanese state is fundamentally civil. It highlights how political practice has distorted this reality by constraining the state’s civil character and limiting the legal mechanisms that safeguard individual rights and uphold the principle of citizenship.
The paper does not aim to analyse the political positions of the sectarian parties that dominate Lebanese society and the state. It recognises that a constitutional approach alone cannot provide a complete picture of reality. Nonetheless, it emphasises the legal dimension of the relationship between the state and religious sects, seeking to free legal reasoning from the discourse of political power, which often manipulates the law to attribute blame to sectarianism and evade accountability.
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