Lebanon is a parliamentary democratic republic within the overall framework of confessionalism, a form of consociationalism in which the highest offices are proportionately reserved for representatives from certain religious communities. The constitution of Lebanon grants the people the right to change their government. Article 7 of Lebanon's Constitution also states that all Lebanese are equal before the law, and are "equally bound by public obligations and duties without any distinction", meaning that all Lebanese citizens – politicians included – are to be held to the same standards of the law, and yet this is not the case. However, from the mid-1970s until the parliamentary elections in 1992, the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990) precluded the exercise of political rights.