The Provisional Constitution of the United Arab Republic or the Constitution of 1958 was the

constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When ...

for the short-lived political union between

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

and

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

known as the

United Arab Republic The United Arab Republic (UAR; ar, الجمهورية العربية المتحدة, al-Jumhūrīyah al-'Arabīyah al-Muttaḥidah) was a sovereign state in the Middle East from 1958 until 1971. It was initially a political union between Eg ...

(UAR). This 74-article provisional constitution was formulated on 5 March 1958 and lasted until the Syrian coup d'état of 28 September 1961. The provisional constitution established

unitary Unitary may refer to: Mathematics * Unitary divisor * Unitary element * Unitary group * Unitary matrix * Unitary morphism * Unitary operator * Unitary transformation * Unitary representation * Unitarity (physics) * ''E''-unitary inverse semigroup ...

(rather than

federal Federal or foederal (archaic) may refer to: Politics General *Federal monarchy, a federation of monarchies *Federation, or ''Federal state'' (federal system), a type of government characterized by both a central (federal) government and states or ...

) state from what had been the Republic of Egypt and the Syrian Republic, although the two parts retained a degree of their own identity ''de facto''. The UAR was simultaneously in loose

confederation A confederation (also known as a confederacy or league) is a union of sovereign groups or states united for purposes of common action. Usually created by a treaty, confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with critical issu ...

with (North)

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...

as the

United Arab States The United Arab States (UAS, ar, الدول العربية المتحدة) was a short-lived confederation of the United Arab Republic (Egypt and Syria) and the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen (North Yemen) from 1958 to 1961. The United Arab R ...

, as set out in the

Charter of the United Arab States A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the re ...

. The provisional constitution distributed power accordingly to the legislative authority (the National Assembly), the executive authority (represented in the Council of Ministers in addition to the President of the Republic) and the judicial authority. A joint National Assembly was established; its members were appointed (400 from Egypt and 200 from Syria). It first met on 21 July 1960 and lasted until 22 June 1961. Following the dissolution of the UAR, the constitution was superseded in Egypt first by a presidential 1962 Constitutional Proclamation, and then by a new " Constitution of the United Arab Republic" (Egypt retained the official name of United Arab Republic until 1971) which was also considered provisional. In Syria, the Constitution of 1950 was restored until the promulgation of a new provisional constitution in 1964 following the Ba'athist seizure of power the previous year.Richard F. Nyrop. ''Area Handbook for Syria.'' U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971
p. 133-34.
/ref>

References

See also