The text of the law also contains formulations about power sharing and is intended to apply during a previously announced five-year transitional period. Ahmed al-Sharaa says that he hopes it will mark the beginning of a new Syria "where we replace oppression with justice".
However, question marks are piling up. Al-Sharaa did reach an important agreement with the Kurds ruling in the northeast earlier in the week, which means a ceasefire and that military forces will merge. But it is still unclear how stable the government will be in Syria as a whole, especially after the violence between different ethnic and religious groups that has claimed over 1,000 lives recently.
It also remains to be seen who will be appointed to write the new permanent constitution – will that group reflect Syria's diverse political and religious landscape?
The interim president has led the rebel group HTS (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham), with previous ties to the terrorist networks al-Qaida and IS, which was instrumental in overthrowing the authoritarian former president Bashar al-Assad and his regime in December.
Al-Sharaa has said that minority groups and religious communities will be protected in a future Syria. But last week's violence claimed many hundreds of civilian lives in the country's coastal areas – most of whom were Alawites and Christians.
