October 14, 2026
The legal and political debate has been renewed over Article 3 of the Banking Reform and Reorganization Law, against the backdrop of the partial appeal submitted by President Joseph Aoun before the Constitutional Council, in exchange for the memorandum submitted by Representative Paula Yacoubian, demanding that the appeal be rejected, and confirming that the approval of the article was carried out in accordance with constitutional principles.
In this context, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Finance and Budget Committee, MP Ibrahim Kanaan, confirmed in a statement to Al-Diyar newspaper that the minutes of the House of Representatives and the audio and video recordings of the legislative session are sufficient to resolve the controversy surrounding the mechanism for approving the article, explaining that the fall of the amendment to the Finance and Budget Committee does not necessarily mean the automatic approval of the government formula.
Kanaan explained that he repeatedly requested a vote on the government formula following the fall of the committee’s amendment, but that did not happen, stressing the importance of distinguishing between voting on a proposal to amend an article and voting on the article itself, and called on the Constitutional Council to use official minutes and recordings to accurately determine the course of the session.
Kanaan stated that the Finance and Budget Committee subjected Article Three to in-depth discussions that resulted in a consensus formula that preserved the authority of the Monetary and Credit Law, after consultations that included the concerned parties, including the government, the Bank of Lebanon, and the International Monetary Fund, noting that this formula was included in the correspondence attached to the committee’s official report.
He pointed out that the committee’s amendment fell in the General Assembly by a margin of four votes, after a number of representatives withdrew from the hall in protest against the amnesty law and did not return to complete the discussion of the banking reform law, stressing that the fall of the amendment does not replace the necessity of voting on the alternative government text, a procedure that was not implemented during the session.
Regarding the legislative essence of Article Three, Kanaan pointed out that the problem lies in the reference of the Monetary and Credit Law and the nature of the relationship between the Central Council of the Bank of Lebanon, the Supreme Banking Authority, and the Banking Control Commission. He pointed out that the phrase “with adherence to the Monetary and Credit Law” was included in Law No. 23 issued in August 2025, before it was deleted in the latest government amendment draft.
Kanaan warned that the absence of an explicit text enshrining this phrase may herald a duality of powers and a conflict of references between the relevant regulatory bodies, stressing that maintaining it ensures clarity in the legal framework regulating the banking sector.
At the conclusion of his speech, Kanaan described the President of the Republic’s appeal before the Constitutional Council as a “constitutional right,” indicating that the review was partial and confined exclusively to Article Three, without affecting the powers of the Supreme Banking Authority or imposing restrictions on it.
