The Constitutional Drafting Assembly denounced the United Nations Support Mission in Libya's (UNSMIL) disregard for the Libyan people's right to a referendum on the draft constitution that the Assembly had prepared since 2017, expressing its readiness to work with relevant parties, including UNSMIL, to reach the permanent stage.

This came in a statement issued by the Constitutional Communication Committee of the Constitutional Drafting Assembly on Monday, regarding the speech of the political official of the United Nations Mission in Libya and the field director of the Mission's office in Benghazi. It said this was about what they included in the discussion of the points on which the Mission's initiative had been based to find a political solution to the current crisis in Libya.

The Communication Committee criticized what was included in the third point of the UN initiative regarding "the call for a structured dialogue that discusses long-term issues, most of which relate to constitutional matters such as the form of the state, the system of government, and the mechanisms for the fair distribution of wealth through an advisory committee formed by the Mission." 

The Communication Committee stressed adherence to its right to adjudicate constitutional issues, considering it the exclusive jurisdiction of the Assembly, which was elected by the Libyan people, noting the completion of the permanent draft constitution for the country on 7/29/2017 in a public vote that exceeded the percentage required in the constitutional declaration.

It added that the draft constitution was "supported by the legitimacy of the judicial rulings issued by the highest judicial authority in Libya, which is the Supreme Court that established the principle of the independence of the Assembly, and fortified its outcomes by stating that the constitutional legislator did not oblige it with any restriction or condition other than completing the draft constitution and presenting it to the Libyan people for acceptance or rejection."

The Constitutional Communication Committee considered that "UNSMIL's delving into the issues that were constitutionally settled in the draft constitution is interference in the constitutional process, and an inappropriate scratching of what is included in the relevant judicial rulings that are fortified under the applicable criminal legislation."

While the Communication Committee expressed its disapproval of UNSMIL's continued proposition of paths that ignore the Libyan people’s right to self-determination through a referendum on the draft constitution, it reaffirmed its readiness to work with all relevant parties, including the UNSMIL, to achieve the permanent stage based on a constitution emanating from the will of the Libyan people.