How The Joint Committee Will Operate To Resolve The Laws Criminalizing Colonialism And Traffic

On Monday, the two parliamentary bureaus, “the People’s National Assembly – the Council of the Nation,” met to agree on how the equally composed committee, tasked with resolving disputed articles in the draft laws criminalizing French colonialism in Algeria and the traffic law, would operate.

Meanwhile, the lower house sent a letter to the heads of parliamentary blocs to designate their representatives on this committee, in preparation for the start of its work after its composition and operating mechanisms are finalized.

According to “Echorouk” data, the meeting of the two chambers’ bureaus was dedicated to finalizing the organizational aspects of the committee’s work, particularly regarding the date and location of the first meeting, in addition to defining the nature and composition of the committee, and the members assigned by the heads of parliamentary blocs to represent the People’s National Assembly.

In the same context, the upper house of parliament agreed on a list of ten members from the Council of the Nation, representing various political formations, to participate in the work of the equally composed committee.

In the same vein, the lower house of parliament initiated its organizational procedures by sending an official letter to the heads of parliamentary blocs to propose their representatives on the committee. The final list will be adopted after all responses are received and approved by the bureaus of both chambers, before the official announcement of the committee’s work commencement.

After the procedural arrangements are completed, representatives of the two councils are expected to meet at a pre-agreed location to discuss the content of the disputed articles in the two drafts.

The dispute involves 13 articles in the draft law criminalizing French colonialism in Algeria, compared to 11 articles in the draft traffic law, with the aim of reaching a unified consensual formula regarding them.

This stage is followed by informing the government of the new agreed-upon formula, before resubmitting the two drafts to both houses of parliament for a yes or no vote. Consequently, if approved, they will be officially adopted by the legislative body, awaiting their publication in the Official Gazette and their entry into force.

The activation of the equally composed committee mechanism comes in the context of a series of legislative discrepancies that characterized the relationship between the two chambers during the ninth parliamentary term, where several points of disagreement were recorded between members of the People’s National Assembly and members of the Council of the Nation.

The first of these disagreements concerned Article 22 of the new media law, related to the deadlines for accrediting foreign press in Algeria. Deputies, in their amendments, set it at a full month, but members of the Council of the Nation rejected this specification and demanded that unspecified deadlines be maintained for deciding on accreditation requests.

Another disagreement arose over Article 2 of the law on the protection of state lands, after the text was approved by the People’s National Assembly, while the Council of the Nation opposed it. Deputies demanded the exclusion of “arch” lands from state property, while senators rejected this proposal, asserting that there was no legal justification for this exception.

The disagreement also extended during this term to Amendment No. 14 related to the law defining the modalities for granting economic real estate, as deputies called for the exclusion of lands included within urban areas from exploitation, but members of the Council of the Nation rejected this proposition.

In the last parliamentary session of the ninth term of the People’s National Assembly, the divergence resurfaced regarding the draft traffic law. The Council of the Nation approved the provisions of the draft, with its members unanimously expressing reservations on 11 articles related to the revision of penalties and fines, and the move towards decriminalizing some provisions of the new law, which necessitated referring these articles to the equally composed committee for resolution.

Concurrently, the same issue arose in the proposed law criminalizing French colonialism in Algeria, after the National Defense Committee in the Council of the Nation, in its preliminary report, expressed reservations about the provisions related to compensation and apology, considering that they are inconsistent with the national orientation based on demanding France to acknowledge its colonial crimes, instead of demanding compensation or apology.

This reinforced the option of resorting to the equally composed committee to resolve the disputed points through a consensual formula between the two houses of parliament.