Summary
The 1922 organic law of Mandate Palestine, enacted 10 August 1922, which outlined the functions of the Palestine Government and provided for a legislative council, and which defined the Palestinian citizen for enfranchisement — with the 1922 Legislative Election Order-in-Council passed in conjunction with it (The Invention of Palestinian Citizenship, 1918–1947, PDF p.52-53 / printed p.41-42).
Details
- The officials who wrote the laws of the early Mandate, including the 1922 constitution (or organic law), the 1922 electoral order and the nationality law drafts, had to ensure their provisions did not run counter to the obligations to the Arab or Jewish inhabitants; legislation could not, on paper, contradict the trusteeship status of the mandate, reclassify Palestine as a Crown colony or protectorate, or impose British subject status on its inhabitants (PDF p.51-52 / printed p.40-41).
- Nationality and citizenship were connected with the enactment of an organic law and the establishment of a partially elected legislative council. The British Government outlined three options — a nationality order-in-council, an electoral order-in-council so an elected council could discuss a nationality law and constitution, or a temporary nationality order-in-council — and Herbert Samuel favoured the first; none was adopted before the League approved the Mandate, and orders-in-council for a constitution and legislative council were completed instead (PDF p.52 / printed p.41).
- Following the ratification of the mandate in July 1922, as Banko gives it, His Majesty’s Government approved the Palestine Order-in-Council as an organic law. Enacted on 10 August 1922, it outlined the functions of the Palestine Government and provided for the composition of the legislative council of appointed British officials and elected representatives from each religious community (PDF p.52 / printed p.41).
- The Order defined a foreigner as any national or subject of Europe, America or Japan, whereas natives from a British mandated territory or any area under direct British rule, Ottoman subjects and any person who had lost Ottoman subject status were not officially considered foreigners in Palestine — in practice, former Ottoman subjects were considered foreigners (PDF p.52-53 / printed p.41-42).
- Crucially, the Order defined the Palestinian citizen for the purpose of enfranchising inhabitants for the legislative council: ‘Turkish subjects’ habitually resident in Palestine, and all other inhabitants who did not possess ‘Turkish nationality’ but were habitually resident in Palestine (referring to Jewish immigrants), provided they applied for provisional citizenship within two months (PDF p.53 / printed p.42).
- Jewish immigrants did not need to renounce their birth nationality to be enfranchised, since the 1922 Legislative Election Order-in-Council, passed in conjunction with the organic law, did not actually confer any nationality. The electoral order provided Jewish immigrants with provisional nationality, while the conditions in the Ottoman Nationality Law of 1869 remained in place as the basis for the provisional nationality of the Arabs; the subsequent citizenship law reproduced this 1922 codification of two distinct categories of ‘the national’ (PDF p.53 / printed p.42).
- The Order stipulated that the right to vote, the first political right linked with nationality, would be on the basis of communal identity, through secondary electors in electoral colleges divided by religion. The proposed elected body limited the power of Arab representatives, as the nominated British and Jewish members would outnumber them and the high commissioner (with two votes) could veto or change any legislation. The first legislative council elections were held that same year, but due to the Arabs’ boycott of them the creation of a legislative council failed (PDF p.53 / printed p.42).
Related pages
The Invention of Palestinian Citizenship, 1918–1947, Palestine Citizenship Order-in-Council 1925, Provisional Palestinian nationality, Palestinian nationality, Herbert Samuel, League of Nations