The guides are not intended to add a new book to the legal library to decorate it or provide a legal reference that researchers resort to in their intense academic studies. It aims at helping the citizen get a better grasp of his rights while going around his normal day to day living.

The guide does not provide diligence and jurisprudence and it does not pretend to present a complete view of human rights or plan solutions for thorny legal issues facing the legal community. It simplifies the legal framework making it more fathomable for the ordinary citizen thus giving him the opportunity to knowingly practice it. A state of over legislation of scattered laws exists in Lebanon. This is not a good indicator to have as the existence of too many laws is making it difficult for the society to comprehend these laws.

In this sense, Philippe Malaurie says;

"Whenever rights get complicated and extensive, consequently they become vague, secret, arbitrary and unjust and become a vague and encrypted message."¹

Until we apply the rule of “No one can ignore the law," in deeds not in words!

According to a decision by the French Constitutional Council that equality and human rights before the law become useless if the citizens were not adequately informed about the laws.² How is it possible to apply the principle "No one can ignore the law" if the law is not available for the citizens to access and comprehend.

Abiding by the legislative norms does not only depend on certain formalities.³ however these formalities are of great importance. Violating the rules of legislation draft (i.e. Legislation), as in adding a legal text to the body of another text that is unrelated to it or the use of certain ambiguous expressions instead of other direct ones in drafting Laws is dangerous because it would mislead a citizen who needn’t be aware of all the intricate techniques of the law.

Preben Braibant says that this happens all the time. Hence we think from our point of view that "experts in the law" are creative, not because they are keen on applying the law but also because they know the gaps within the law.

The laws of the general budget each year provide an example worthy for studying.⁴ many of its articles amend, separately, laws that have financial and tax implications by granting tax deductions that would ease the financial burden on the citizens or to effect amendments on financial laws without proper advice to the public about these changes. This is done without establishing a comparison between the old texts and the new texts, leaving the citizens with no alternative except, to refer to dozens of existing laws, to comprehend these amendments. This will not happen of course. There is nothing to suggest that these amendments are made available to the citizen to equally benefit from them despite the fact that they were published in the official Gazette

The last chapter of the budget law under the heading of "miscellaneous items" amends laws which are unrelated to the budget without explanation or proper justifications. As in the case of subjecting recruitment competitions for public institutions- including the independent departments-to the authority of the Civil Service Council (Act 54 from the budget of 2003),or amending the property law regarding the statute of time on land rights (Act 255), and adjusting the Land Registry regulations (Act 60), while keeping the post of surveyor without amendment (Act 59), and allowing the partition of Real Estate property irrespective of the presence of building code violations (Act 61).

We have worked in the "Legislation Monitor in Lebanon," a program to monitor legislation and identify their compliance with human rights standards⁵, to expose these practices until they became rare.⁶

We also organized a number of seminars that aimed at reforming the legislative process. These seminars grouped deputies and concerned citizens to approach legislation to the community to achieve better understanding between them.⁷

Despite the significant efforts that have been made in the first ten years after the war (1990-2000), The majority of the Lebanese Legislation texts are still ancient ⁸, copied from the old French legislation texts and are inappropriate in most cases to Lebanon and its legislation’s needs. They remain scattered, non-uniform, and non- homogeneous to the extent of inconsistency from one law to another, one law implicitly eliminating another law. They contains laws that are incorrectly classified, sometimes not titled or with a title that does not fully reflect the content, in an unstudied language and legal expressions published in a primitive way. Meanwhile, the French Language Council actively participates in developing the language used in the laws. Contrary to the Lebanese legislation, the modern French Legislation is generally characterized with many advantages such as clarity in the structure of the texts. They contain headlines and sub-titles, establishing uniformity and accuracy in the terms used, thus facilitating the use of the law and access to the legal basis required. The task of the legislators is of great accuracy because they translate the required citizenship behavior in legal language.

Beside the political and historical reasons for the Lebanese Legislation gaps, (Ottoman texts, translating old French laws⁹, the lack of legislative policy, the inability to elect a parliament during the civil war and the power complexity between various ministries and departments which reflects in conflicts between statutes.) We notice that deputies in general do not seek the help of full-time, professional, legal consultants and they cannot study all the materials of law proposals and projects, the decline in the number of senior lawyers among the deputies in favor of business men and other professions. We became now are in need of more "legislators" who are familiar with the legislation norms and not for deputy politicians only.

(It is required) There is a need to empower citizens to access their rights, read and understand them (otherwise known as the "Access to Law"). This is important in a country like Lebanon, where the administration has broad authority over interpreting and applying legal texts and where it is difficult to resort to the courts to enforce legal texts when it is not applied due to the high cost of litigation and protracted trials.¹⁰

It is important to take into consideration that a citizen’s ability to read (a text) does not necessarily reflect his skill at reading legal texts and it is also a fact that a large sector of the society in some regions has a poor understanding of legal terminology.

On the other hand, citizens often believe that the law will always provide a legal solution in a particular issue and guarantee all their rights and obligations. They are often surprised at the deficiency or vagueness in certain laws. This is referred to as "The illusion of completion" or "The illusion of the perfect legal rule," and this often requires a revision of relevant court resolutions ¹¹ It is the duty of the legislature ( is required) to review the courts’ resolutions periodically so as to update all the acquired stable jurisprudence within the legal text.

It is not enough that the law forbids certain behaviors or actions, it is also necessary to determine the consequences and penalties of doing said actions. The citizen should be provided with the complete legislative data.

According to the decision of the European Court of Human Rights:¹²

"A citizen should be able to be fully informed, according to the case, about legislative rules that are applied to the case. It is not considered a law unless it is based on legislative rule and is accurate in providing the information necessary to enable citizens to behave appropriately, provide them with helpful guidance when necessary and enable them to know the consequences of refusing to comply."¹³

Abiding by legislative conventions would take into account the removal of contradiction between legal texts and avoid the trouble of conflicting interpretations, and to repeal legal provisions that have not been implemented or those that are no longer practical and to delete provisions that are annulled explicitly or implicitly.¹⁴

Following legislative norms and regular practice and guaranteeing citizens' easy access to legal rights is not an issue of formalities, it helps the development of the legal framework and its democratization, and strengthens the rule of law

Does Andre Bello's advice regarding the redrafting of the Chile Civil Code apply for the Lebanese legislation today? When speaking about the redrafting "Bello" stresses the importance to "recombine this confused mass of diverse elements, incoherent and contradictory, by giving them consistency and harmony"¹⁵

The legislative situation in Lebanon requires "a redraft" of the existing legislation in the sense of replacing it with new, radically different texts as much as it requires disaggregation in uniform laws by subject, followed by a detailed review of the adequacy of provisions and the development and activation of the mechanisms applied in order to make the application possible within the reality of the political and administrative complex…. And provide citizens with their rights.

The latter is what we seek through this guide in a series dealing with legal topics.

1. "The more a right becomes complex and abundant, the more it becomes unintelligible, secret, and hence arbitrary and unjust, the more it becomes an obscure coded message."
   
   
2. French Constitutional Council resolution No. 99-421 DC Date 16/12/1999.
   
   
3. For example: Having a provision on reducing the registration fee of real estate for banks in the conclusion of a law which regulates the publishing banks’ shares and trading (Article 308 on 3/4/2001).
   
   
4. For example: Law 583 Date 23/4/2004: the general budget and annexed budgets for 2004, published in the Official Gazette No.23 dated 24/4/2004, p. 3365 and what follows it.
   
   
5. Lebanese Foundation for Permanent Civil Peace, supervision of Dr. Antoine Messara, Dr. Paul Morcos and others
   
   
6. Messara, Antoine, Morcos Paul and others, Legislation Monitor in Lebanon (communication between the legislation and the community), Lebanese Foundation for Permanent Civil Peace publications, 3 parts, Beirut, 2005-2006-2007.
   
   
7. See for example, in "An-nhar": 23/2/2007, p.16, entitled: "Symposium on the reform of the legislative process, away from politics" and 30.3.2006, p. 22 entitled: "Symposium on the rights standards in the legislative policy."
   
   
8. Even the translation came out of place sometimes: for example, legislative decisions, which ends the letters "L.R" stands for French is Lois et Règlements! In the Act 17 of the Penal Code of 1943 Arabized from the old French Penal Code: "Is in the rule of Lebanese territory, for applying the penal law: …. Foreign territories occupied by the Lebanese army... "
   
   
9. Refer to the article by Nabil Bou Monsef in "An-nhar", 19.7.2002, p. 3, entitled: "The legislation on the standing!"
   
   
10. For more information see: Morcos, Paul and Nakib, Walid, a study submitted to the Ministry of Justice on "access to justice through the promotion of transparency and effectiveness of judicial administration, " commissioned by the United Nations Development Program UNDP, 2007, 85 pp.
    
    
11. Messara, Antoine, and Morcos Paul, the Observatory of the judiciary in Lebanon, the Lebanese Foundation publications for Permanent Civil Peace, two parts 2006- 2007, 152 p., 464 pp.
    
    
12. European Court's Decision on Human Rights: CEDH, 2/8/1984, "Sunday Times c/United Kingdom, from 26/4/1979.
    
    
13. Minister, Me. Ziad Baroud, who initiated the consolidation provisions of the law faculty in private schools of 1956 despite the many amendments since then, in his book "Employment firing and the rights of teachers," Publications of People’s Rights Movement, 2001, 159 p.
    
    
14. One must "recombine this confused mass of diverse elements, incoherent and contradictory, by giving them consistency and harmony, and by putting them in relation with the living forms of social order." (André Bello, Message for the Chilean Civil Code).