On January 12, 2008, the Iraqi parliament approved a bill allowing members of Saddam Hussein's now-defunct Baath Party not charged with crimes to be reinstated to public life. The Iraqi De-Baathification Commission had forced the removal of almost 30,000 members of the party from public office. The reform bill had stalled following opposition from a leading Shiite cleric in April 2007, who called it "dangerous." The passage of the reform legislation was praised by the US as meeting one of the stability benchmarks set by the Bush administration in September 2007.

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Learn more about Iraq from the JURIST news archive and read an overview of the Iraq War in Features.

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