From Illegitimacy to Entrenchment: The Impostor Court and Iraq’s Constitutional Subversive Epistemicide

Abstract

This article explores Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court as a case of judicial impostoring—where an institution lacking constitutional legitimacy claims epistemic authority over the legal order. Created by executive decree, the FSCI entrenched itself as a de facto constitutional arbiter cloaked in the aesthetics of legality. Drawing on critical legal theory, postcolonial thought, and the concept of epistemicide, the article examines how judicial performance masks the destruction of alternative constitutional knowledge. Through case analysis and theoretical framing, it contributes to debates on law, legitimacy, and epistemic violence in postcolonial and post-authoritarian legal contexts.