Iraq’s CF to revive legislative push on PMF and judiciary laws

Shafaq News – Baghdad

Iraq’s Coordination Framework (CF), a coalition of Shiite parties aligned with Iran and influential in forming the current government, is preparing to hold a key meeting next week to jumpstart stalled legislative efforts in Parliament.

MP Amer Al-Fayez told Shafaq News that the CF aims to move forward on priority bills before the end of the parliamentary term. The agenda will focus on legislation concerning the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and the Federal Supreme Court—two politically sensitive areas that have faced repeated delays.

In March, lawmakers conducted a first reading of a bill to define the PMF’s internal structure, including its directorates and brigades. The Parliamentary Security and Defense Committee later postponed the second reading, citing the need for more legal and technical review. That followed the government’s withdrawal of an earlier, more contentious draft that addressed PMF Service and Retirement benefits, after public and political pushback.

The United States has repeatedly cautioned Iraq against reshaping the PMF into an entity resembling Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a parallel military institution with extensive political influence.

Attention is also fixed on the Federal Supreme Court Law, which has gained urgency amid ongoing judicial tensions. In June, six principal judges and three alternates submitted their resignations in protest of Chief Justice Jassem Al-Omari’s leadership—a move widely seen as linked to political pressure surrounding a pending court ruling on Iraq’s maritime border agreement with Kuwait over the disputed Khor Abdullah waterway.