In this article, I set out the legal dilemma facing Syria in the post-Assad phase, concerning how to enact legislation that criminalizes the denial of the crimes of the former regime or the glorification of it, without sliding towards a loose collective criminalization that contradicts the principle of criminal legality. The writer relies on Article (49) of the Constitutional Declaration issued in March 2025, which obligates the state to criminalize the glorification of the former regime and the denial of its crimes, and he reads this obligation in conjunction with the guarantees of Article (17) of the same Declaration and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The core argument is built on the necessity of separating responsibility for an existing regime from specific individual criminal guilt, warning that enacting a law that presumes in advance the responsibility of Bashar al-Assad for every crime between 2000 and 2024 replaces judicial proof with a legislative declaration, in violation of the principles of the presumption of innocence and fair trial, and it presents the models of responsibility in Articles 25 and 28 of the Rome Statute as useful comparative formulas for defining the modes of criminal responsibility. The writer also discusses the problematic nature of the term “Assadism” as a politically useful concept that is, however, not directly usable as a criminal legal category, and he cites the German model in banning unconstitutional parties as an adaptable legal structure, not a ready-made model for transfer, showing the restrictions that the principles of non-retroactivity of criminal law and freedom of expression impose on any proposed implementing legislation. The article concludes, in light of a draft law prepared by the Syrian Ministry of Justice in late June 2026 concerning the denial of the crimes of the former regime, that preventing the return of “Assadism” requires more than reversing political loyalty; it requires ending loose criminalization and collective guilt, through precise accountability mechanisms that combine individual criminal prosecution, administrative vetting, and non-punitive measures.
Fadel Abdulghany
Post-Assad Syria has a legitimate interest in prosecuting the international crimes committed during the rule of the former regime, dismantling the institutional apparatus that enabled their commission, and preventing the organized attempts aiming to rebuild it under a new name.
Article (49) of the Constitutional Declaration issued on 13 March 2025 obligates the state to criminalize the glorification of the former regime and its symbols, and the denial of its crimes or the praising, justification, or downplaying of them; it also provides that the principle of non-retroactivity of laws doesn’t apply to war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and the rest of the crimes committed by the former regime.
This constitutional obligation should be read in conjunction with the guarantees of the principle of legality contained in Article 17 of the same Declaration, and in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The Assad regime committed horrific violations of human rights that amounted to crimes against humanity and war crimes, documented by the bodies and commissions of the United Nations, and by international and local human rights organizations. These institutional findings on attribution provide a strong basis for investigating senior political and military officials, and the officials of the intelligence, prison, and security apparatuses. However, they don’t, in and of themselves, establish individual criminal guilt.
Criminalizing the denial of these crimes or the glorification of them doesn’t hold without first laying down a sound legal framework for prosecuting their perpetrators. Any defensible transitional criminal law should begin with the separation between responsibility for a regime and the guilt attributed to a specific accused.
Hence, enacting a law declaring that Bashar al-Assad committed every crime attributed to the forces of the state between 2000 and 2024 would replace judicial proof with a legislative declaration. That would contradict Article (17) of the Constitutional Declaration, which provides that punishment is personal, that there is no crime and no punishment except by a legal provision, and that the accused is innocent until proven guilty by a final judicial ruling.
It would also contradict Article (14) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which requires the determination of criminal charges by a competent, independent, and impartial tribunal. The appropriate formulation is the one that obligates the competent authorities to investigate all persons suspected of responsibility and to prosecute them judicially whenever admissible and sufficient evidence is available, regardless of their former official positions.
Although Syria isn’t a party to the Rome Statute, Articles (25) and (28) of it offer considerable comparative formulas for codifying the relevant modes of responsibility, namely: direct commission, ordering, aiding and abetting, intentional contribution to a crime committed by a group acting with a common purpose, and the responsibility of commanders or superiors. Through these modes, the prosecutors must establish the link between the accused and specific criminal acts.
A conceptual problem arises in connection with the political term “Assadism”. It usefully describes a regime in which hereditary power, the dominance of the security and intelligence apparatuses, the exclusivity of the Baath Party, coercive patronage networks, and systematic impunity interacted. However, this term, without further precision and definition, doesn’t constitute a category usable in criminal law.
Thus, banning “Assadism and all its manifestations” would merge into a single crime acts that differ in their nature and their legal significance, among them: the private expression of nostalgia for the past, the academic analysis of the previous era, official employment in one of the ministries of the state, displaying an image with the intent of intimidating survivors, raising funds for the benefit of a security network, organizing a party that seeks to restore one-party rule, and recruitment into a successor armed structure.
The concept of militant democracy, which recognizes the right of the democratic order to defend itself in the face of the forces seeking to abolish it, doesn’t permit punishing an ideology of undefined contours; rather, it requires setting disciplined legal categories that target the rebuilding of the institutions and practices responsible for repression.
The German legal system is often cited as the optimal model for a comprehensive ban of a ruling system that has lost its legitimacy.
However, this citation lacks precision. Germany offers a legal structure, not a ready-made model; its rules arose in a distinct constitutional and historical context, and transferring them to the Syrian circumstances will require introducing substantial modifications to them.
Article (21) of the Basic Law empowers the Federal Constitutional Court to declare political parties unconstitutional whenever they seek to undermine or abolish the free democratic order. In its 2017 ruling concerning the National Democratic Party, the Court concluded that the aims of the party were unconstitutional, but it refrained from banning it for the absence of sufficient indications of its actual capacity to make progress towards achieving those aims.
The criminal law then distinguishes between the continuation of the activity of parties the Court has declared unconstitutional and the continued activity of organizations banned under other legal procedures.
It also regulates propaganda and symbols, with explicit safeguards provided for activities related to civic education, science, teaching, art, and the media coverage of historical events, and it links the denial or glorification of certain specific crimes committed by the National Socialist regime to the disturbance of the public peace and the violation of the dignity of the victims.
Hence, democratic protection requires differentiated legal mechanisms, with precise elements, judicial oversight, and public-interest exceptions, not a general criminalization of ideology.
Two additional principles impose restrictions on the implementing legislation. The first of them is the prohibition of the retroactivity of criminal law. The failure of the previous legal system to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, or torture doesn’t render the original conduct lawful.
Prosecution may be consistent with the principle of legality whenever the relevant crime and the mode of responsibility for it were recognized in the national or international law applicable at the time the acts were committed. Nevertheless, the courts must examine, in every case, the applicable crime, the jurisdiction, and the penalty. As for the newly created crimes related to glorification, symbols, and successor organizations (that is, those seeking to continue the structures of the former regime or its practices under new names), they must apply prospectively as of the date of entry into force of the implementing law.
Article (15) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights preserves the possibility of prosecution for acts that were considered criminal according to the general principles of law, but it doesn’t permit an unrestricted retroactive punitive legislation. The wording of Article (49) concerning non-retroactivity should be read as an affirmation of the first principle, not a license for the second.
As for the second principle, it is the freedom of expression. The Human Rights Committee of the United Nations establishes, in its General Comment No. (34), that general laws penalizing the expression of opinions concerning historical facts are incompatible with the Covenant. However, that doesn’t extend to protecting threats directed at survivors, the intimidation of witnesses, the obstruction of the course of justice, or direct incitement to violence; these are acts that may be restricted under Article (19)(3) whenever the restriction is provided by law, necessary, and proportionate.
Article (20) also mandates the prohibition of propaganda for war, and of advocacy that meets the required threshold of national, racial, or religious hatred. An anti-glorification crime in law should be confined to public and deliberate expression concerning specific crimes established by final judicial rulings, while allowing the courts to treat the findings of the recognized international investigative bodies as evidence, not as conclusive determinations on the question of guilt.
It should also distinguish between serious endorsement, justification, or denial, and factual error or legitimate historical disagreement, and it should require the occurrence of a harm recognized by the law, such as incitement, intimidation, the obstruction of justice, or a grave threat to the public peace.
The source of the concern that imposes these restrictions doesn’t stem from legal doctrinal considerations in the first place. The former regime relied on loose political and security crimes, secret evidence, exceptional courts, and security classifications of political opponents.
A badly drafted anti-Assadism law would reproduce these methods against new political targets. The demand for a broad ban remains understandable in light of the continuation of denial, the intimidation of survivors, and the return of the former security and patronage networks to the political sphere. However, urgency must not erase the distinctions upon which legal accountability is built.
Criminal prosecution alone isn’t sufficient to dismantle the structure of the former regime and hold accountable all those who contributed to its continuation. Therefore, officials holding governmental positions can be subjected to administrative vetting processes to assess their suitability to remain in their posts or to assume similar positions.
This assessment may cover the extent of their personal participation in the violations, their failure in supervisory duties, their obstruction of investigations, their involvement in corruption linked to repression, or the continuation of their ties to successor networks practicing violence.
However, these procedures must be coupled with essential guarantees, among them notifying the person concerned, informing him of the substance of the evidence presented against him, enabling him to respond to it, issuing a reasoned decision, and allowing an appeal against it before an independent body. No person may be excluded merely for his former membership in a party, his rank, his sect, his ethnic affiliation, or his family connection.
As for non-punitive measures, among them the removal of materials associated with the glorification of personality from public institutions, the renaming of streets and facilities, the preservation of archives and detention sites, and the inclusion of documented violations in educational curricula, they address the cultural and institutional conditions through which the former regime operated. Likewise, no framework directed at the former state apparatus may deprive the victims of crimes committed by other armed or political actors of equal access to truth, justice, and redress.
The question in this article is no longer hypothetical. The Ministry of Justice reported, in late June 2026, that it has completed a draft law addressing the denial of the crimes of the former regime or the questioning, justification, or glorification of them, and that it intends to refer it to the People’s Assembly. The postponement of the opening session of the Assembly allows additional time to ensure that the draft law distinguishes between protecting the victims and controlling historical opinion.
Preventing the return of Assadism requires more than merely reversing political loyalty; it requires ending loose criminalization, and collective guilt.
