Lebanon's Constitutional Council unanimously annulled Article 3 of Law 71, which amended the country's bank recovery and restructuring framework. The council also struck two phrases from Articles 19 and 27 concerning administrative travel bans and legal protection for bank employees. The decision was issued on 20 October after President Joseph Aoun challenged the legislation. The rest of the amended law remains in force without the annulled provisions.
The disputed Article 3 addressed the objectives and governance of bank resolution and its relationship with Lebanon's Code of Money and Credit. Aoun filed his review on 22 September after Law 71 was issued on 10 September. An-Nahar reported that the council reviewed the parliamentary minutes and an audio recording of the legislative session. It concluded that Article 3 had not secured the required majority.
GOVERNANCE DISPUTE RETURNS TO LAWMAKERS
The ruling preserves the Code of Money and Credit as the reference point for the central bank's powers, according to L'Orient Today. That outcome revives the governance dispute that the amendments were meant to settle. Any replacement provision will need to respect both the existing code and the constitutional council's findings on legislative procedure.
The council also removed language allowing an administrative travel ban on people linked to a bank under resolution. It separately deleted a phrase shielding bank employees from legal proceedings. Those changes leave coercive restrictions and legal accountability subject to the ordinary judicial framework rather than the annulled statutory wording.
IMF PROGRAMME TIMETABLE STAYS EXPOSED
The International Monetary Fund welcomed Lebanon's August bank-law amendments as a major step, while warning that implementation and further legislation remained necessary. The fund has also linked a new programme to a financial-gap law, a sustainable 2027 budget and a medium-term fiscal framework. The constitutional decision therefore adds another legislative task to an already crowded reform agenda.
The immediate effect is a narrower bank-resolution framework, not the cancellation of the whole law. Lawmakers will now have to decide whether and how to replace Article 3 and the deleted clauses. The next concrete milestones are publication of the full ruling in the official record and any government or parliamentary proposal responding to it.