March 14 Hints Nasrallah has No Authority to Instruct Miqati

The March 14 forces snapped back at Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah hinting that he had no constitutional authority to give instructions to Premier Najib Miqati.

“We know that he isn’t a constitutional expert but he should know that the constitution clearly states that any grant or donation to the Lebanese state which is approved by the cabinet becomes treasury money,” senior March 14 sources told An Nahar daily on Friday.

Nasrallah said in a televised speech on Thursday that he didn’t know whether Miqati’s move to pay Lebanon’s share to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon funding was legal or constitutional.

Media reports had said that the funds were paid through the Higher Relief Council. But Nasrallah revealed he has been told that the money to finance the STL would come from “donations by certain sides and nations that will be deposited into the account of the HRC.”

While the Hizbullah secretary-general stressed that his party would not cause a problem despite its rejection of the funding, he said it was Miqati’s duty to address the issue of so-called false witnesses at cabinet sessions.

The false witnesses have reportedly misled U.N. investigators probing ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s Feb. 2005 assassination.

Nasrallah said that Miqati should later refer the issue to the Higher Judicial Council.

But the March 14 sources told An Nahar that it is unfamiliar in Lebanese political life for someone who isn’t an MP and hasn’t any constitutional authority to instruct the prime minister.

The prolonged dispute between the March 8 and 14 coalitions over false witnesses led to the collapse of ex-Premier Saad Hariri’s national unity cabinet in January following the resignation of Hizbullah ministers and their allies to protest the government’s failure to refer it to the HJC.

March 14 general-secretariat coordinator Fares Soaid told LBC TV station that Syria, which is keen on preventing the collapse of the government, ordered Nasrallah to approve the funding.

“Hizbullah wasn’t able to impose its conditions on the cabinet,” he said. But Soaid stressed that Nasrallah’s move to give instructions to Miqati proves once again that the Lebanese government is governed by the Shiite party.

“The payment of the funds was a victory for justice,” he said.