Bill crafted on dismissal of Speaker

KUWAIT CITY, April 3: Article 135 of the National Assembly Decree states that a grilling motion must be included in the agenda of the session following the day when the motion was submitted, while the concerned minister has the right to request for a twoweek postponement of the grilling or more subject to the approval of lawmakers through public voting in which a special majority vote must be achieved, says MP Musaed Al-Ardi. Al-Ardi was surprised when he found out that the grilling motion he filed against His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khalid has been excluded from the agenda of the upcoming session of the Assembly.

He said he thoroughly checked the Constitution and Assembly Decree but he did not find any article on postponing a grilling motion which has yet to be submitted. He urged Assembly Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanim to show him the article that the latter used as basis in allowing the postponement of grilling motions which have yet to be filed against Sheikh Sabah Al-Khalid until the next round of the current parliamentary term. He added the ministers violated the Constitution and the law just five minutes after they took oath to adhere to the Constitution.

MP Abdulaziz Al-Saqaabi has submitted a bill to amend Article 28 of the Assembly Decree in a bid to enable the MPs to evaluate, question and dismiss the Speaker through a written proposal on taking any of this step which will be submitted by at least one third of the MPs. The proposal will be presented for public voting – calling the MPs’ names to vote. This kind of proposal is submitted only once in a parliamentary round (one year).

He said many Arab and foreign parliaments have adopted this procedure, indicating it is unacceptable that the head of the executive authority – HH the Prime Minister – is subject to evaluation, questioning and no confidence motions while the head of the legislative authority is not. He clarified that he is not targeting certain individuals as his aim is to rectify mistakes, citing Article 30 of the Assembly Decree which specifies the duties of the Speaker – to enforce the decree and not to interpret or explain its provisions according to his personal opinion.

On the other hand, MP Muhannad Al-Sayer stressed that he, MP Hassan Jawhar and MP Mehalhal Al-Mudaf have no intention to give up their right to include the grilling motion they filed against Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled in the agenda of the upcoming session. He pointed out that violation of the Constitution has been continuing since the inauguration session of the Assembly, including the government’s insistence to elect Al-Ghanim as speaker of the legislature. He called to mind that Al-Ghanim said a new page would be opened with the MPs, but this page contains noting but constitutional violations. “We will never allow them to protect HH the Prime Minister from grilling for almost one and half year and to suspend the MPs constitutional right to grill the government,” he asserted.

He claimed such violations are aimed at transforming the Assembly into a formal Institution representing fake democracy and used by the government to pass laws according to its whim in cooperation with a few MPs. He said the suspension of grilling motions for one and a half year is a clear violation; adding that even the constitutional experts who used to justify the illegal steps taken by the speaker and the government remained silent and have not dared utter even one word to support them. He concluded: “If they consider democracy a tool to achieve their goals, we believe that democracy is our safety valve and we will never abandon it.”

By Saeed Mahmoud Saleh Arab Times Staff