Draft completed of amendments to parliament regulations

A draft has been put together today after discussions between political parties, of amendments to be made to the parliament regulations.

The amendments are required in order to resolve opinion differences on the legal issues surrounding parliament regulations arising from the lack of representation of President Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan’s party in the parliament.

Deputy Speaker of parliament Ahmed Nazim said that the draft will be presented to political parties. A parliament meeting will be held as soon as the differences in opinions between parties on this issue are resolved.

“The discussions have taken place, and a draft of the necessary amendments has been put together based on the feedback. Now we are trying to resolve the differences,” Nazim said after the discussions between Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP), People’s Alliance (PA) and Jumhooree Party (JP).

Amendments are to be made to three main areas of the parliament regulations. This includes article 71(a) which states that bills can only be submitted to parliament by members of the ruling party. If the ruling party cannot submit bills to the parliament, no bills regarding taxes can be submitted to parliament.

MDP is most concerned about the bills regarding President Nasheed’s economic packages which had been submitted to Parliament. The Parliament regulation does not mention how bills should be handled in the event of change of government. Political parties have included this as an amendment to be made to the parliament regulation.

The third amendment is proposed to article 25(b), which states that following the delivery of the presidential address, the party with most members other than the one represented by the President (majority leader or minority leader) must prepare and deliver a response to the presidential address. According to article 25 (e), this response must be delivered within 14 days of the presidential address.

However MDP does not believe that the party should respond to the presidential address, because it is not clear which is the ruling party and which is the opposition party at the parliament.

Nazim said that the issue requires a political solution, and that the issue will be resolved politically and not through current discussions.

The draft of amendments to parliament regulations has now been submitted to parliamentary groups of political parties. A meeting of MDP parliamentary group is scheduled tomorrow, where the matter will be discussed.

Leader of MDP Parliamentary Group Ibrahim Mohamed Solih (Ibu) said that the matter will be resolved as soon as possible.

Ibu said that Parliament Secretary Ahmed Mohamed had indicated that the damage caused to equipment at the parliament chamber on 19 March will be fixed this week, and a parliament session can hopefully take place next week.