Discord grips Parliament owing to programming of laws outside the Assembly’s Office

An unexpected decision by the parliamentary administrative Board sparked off a pandemonium in the lower House of parliament on Monday with the opposition deputies claiming that such a move aimed at programming the examining of laws outside the Assembly’s office was contrary to the legal provisions governing the internal functioning of the National People’s Assembly.

The Assembly’s deputies received unexpectedly a text message late on Sunday night, informing them about the early programming of several new draft laws (including the draft amendment to the law to prevent money laundering and the financing of terrorism and how best to fight it and the draft amendment to the Penal Code), on behalf of the Government.

This untoward development triggered off the discontent of the MP’s who decided to boycott the relevant parliamentary session as a sign of protest.

Numerous deputies belonging to opposition parties including those from the Green Alliance, the workers’ party and the justice and development party voiced their utter rejection of such a government procedural method of haphazardly programming sessions, stressing that this ran against the clearly-defined internal functioning of the Assembly’s office in line with relevant provisions, number 14, 49 and 50 governing parliamentary practice in both houses of Parliament.