150 Postponed Laws.. Major Duties Await the Iraqi Parliament in Its Second Legislative Term

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[size=52]150 Postponed Laws.. Major Duties Await the Iraqi Parliament in Its Second Legislative Term[/size]

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2024-07-10
The Iraqi Council of Representatives began its second legislative session of the third legislative year after the end of its legislative recess yesterday, Tuesday, while the Parliament Presidency called on the representatives, committees and parliamentary blocs to resume their legislative and oversight work, without specifying the date of the next session to “complete the legislative and oversight entitlements placed on the Council of Representatives,” according to a statement by the Parliament Presidency.[/size]
[size=45]The House of Representatives voted in its first legislative session “on the budget law and the national security law, as well as voting on several draft laws, in addition to the first and second reading of some laws, while the hosting and interrogations did not go unnoticed, which ended with the dismissal of the director of the Iraqi Media Network and the head of the Board of Trustees,” according to the member of the State Administration Alliance, MP Ali Nima Al-Bandawi.[/size]
[size=45]Al-Bandawi confirms that “all parliamentary committees are active and have meetings, hosting, meetings and field visits. The House of Representatives began its work in the second legislative session the day before yesterday, as the Parliament Presidency called for the necessity of joining the committees and following up on their daily work, even though our oversight work was ongoing throughout the legislative holiday, which was a holiday that was only for the legislative enactment of laws.”[/size]
[size=45]Al-Bandawi added, “The House of Representatives is waiting for many laws, and all committees have a set of important laws, but most of the laws are not proposed by the House of Representatives, but rather come from the government, especially those with a financial aspect, considering that the government is aware of the money and spending methods.”[/size]
[size=45]Regarding the laws of the Security and Defense Committee, of which he is a member, Al-Bandawi explains, “The National Security Law has been completed after it had been postponed for four sessions. During this chapter, the committee has the Intelligence Law and the Information Crimes Law, which have been suspended since previous sessions. We hope to vote on them during the coming period, as well as other laws.”[/size]
[size=45]150 draft laws and proposals[/size]
[size=45]For his part, MP Omid Mohammed Ahmed, a member of the Parliamentary Legal Committee, says, “There are more than 150 draft laws and proposed laws that have accumulated since the first session of Parliament until today, some of which have reached the second reading, some of which are still in the first reading, and another section is just a draft, whether from those sent by the government or proposals put forward by parliamentary committees or a group of parliament members.”[/size]
[size=45]Ahmed pointed out during his speech that “in the previous legislative session, a schedule was created for the most important laws that directly affect the citizen, and an agreement was reached on a mechanism for legislating non-controversial laws that all political blocs agree upon, but so far there is no specific schedule for legislating non-controversial laws. The sessions are supposed to begin yesterday because the legislative holiday ended and the committees resumed their work, but a day has not been set for holding the session, and when the sessions begin, the important laws will be determined.”[/size]
[size=45]“Failure is growing” due to the indecisiveness of the Parliament Speaker[/size]
[size=45]But on the other hand, political analyst Dr. Ghazi Faisal believes that “the absence of the Speaker of the House of Representatives for 7 months, in addition to the lack of consensus and agreement between the various political parties and alliances, whether Shiite, Sunni or others, towards issuing more than 50 laws that the constitutional articles clearly indicate, and these laws aim to facilitate the implementation of the constitutional articles.”[/size]
[size=45]Faisal added, “The failure and inability during more than 20 years of enacting a law related to oil and gas, for example, was the cause of many problems and crises between the Kurdistan Region and Baghdad, especially with regard to investments, companies, and the export of oil from the region via Ceyhan in Turkey. The prevention of the continued export of oil via Ceyhan also caused losses exceeding 15 billion dollars to the Iraqi economy, and all agreements between the two parties to achieve the return of oil exports via Ceyhan failed.”[/size]
[size=45]Faisal continues, “If we take Article 140, which requires implementation after two years with the first elected government and parliament in 2005, we notice the government’s failure at the time to implement this article during the two years and to resolve the problems related to the disputed areas in Kirkuk and its outskirts, as well as the law regulating the relationship between the Peshmerga as regular combat forces and the Iraqi armed forces.”[/size]
[size=45]He added, “Also, the draft general amnesty law, for example, which is supposed to aim to pardon detainees and prisoners for political reasons, but this law has remained stalled and the parties concerned or those who have the majority in parliament and in the political process have not committed to legislating this law, as is the case in the rest of the countries of the world.”[/size]
[size=45]He explains that “the lack of agreement and consensus suspended the issuance of a law for the Federal Court, as the Constitution clearly indicates, and that this law is what regulates the work of the Federal Court, which has remained to this day formed according to the State Administration Law during the era of Paul Bremer, and no new law has been issued since 2005 according to the 2005 Constitution, in addition to many important laws to regulate economic, political and social life according to the aforementioned Constitution.”[/size]
[size=45]Faisal believes that “this failure will continue and grow in the legislative authority due to the failure to resolve the position of the Speaker of Parliament and his election, which is stipulated and stipulated in the constitution, three days after the dismissal or death of the Speaker of Parliament, a new speaker is elected. But today, more than 7 months after the dismissal of Halbousi, we find a dangerous political vacuum in the legislative authority. This is also due to the lack of a real and serious consensus between the Sunni parties to form a majority that nominates a Speaker of Parliament and elects this speaker, and between the continued absence of this majority and the continued insistence of (Progress) on the fact that it is the one that forms the majority, and thus it is the one that nominates a new Speaker of Parliament.”[/size]
[size=45]He added, "Therefore, we are facing a model of deep and dangerous conflicts and contradictions between the Sunni parties and the parties in the Coordination Framework that did not agree on a figure to be elected in coordination with the Sunni majority in Parliament to overcome the issue of electing a new Speaker of Parliament."[/size]
[size=45]Faisal concluded by saying, “All this reflects a disastrous failure of the parties in the political process to commit to implementing the constitutional articles since the 2005 Constitution until today, as well as the failure to commit to the constitutional articles within the framework of governance and the organization of state administration and the failure of the political parties, especially the Coordination Framework, to the agreements adopted within the framework of the State Alliance when the Sudanese government was formed and the government program, which included essential demands of the Kurdistan Democratic Party that were not committed to implementing, as well as the failure to implement the demands put forward by the Sunni parties regarding the general amnesty, Jurf al-Sakhr, the return of the displaced, compensation, the release of detainees for political reasons and other details that were proven in the agreements. Therefore, we are facing a political, legislative and societal vacuum, and we hope that the political parties will return to drawing a roadmap to confront these various challenges.”[/size]
[size=45]“MPs are political analysts”[/size]
[size=45]In the same context, the head of the Al-Rafd Center for Media and Studies, Dr. Abbas Al-Jubouri, says, “Many citizens have lost hope in this parliament due to the large percentage of inaction that has occurred and the parliament has turned into a parliament of political conflicts, arguments, insults, and obscene words, as evidenced by what happened in the last session to elect the parliament speaker.”[/size]
[size=45]Al-Jubouri explained to Shafaq News Agency, “Parliament has not been able to elect a speaker for 7 months despite the existence of mechanisms and the position is decided for a specific component, but the political conflict within Parliament and the agendas that have entered it are what disrupt the sessions. As evidence, when the first round took place, the second round was supposed to continue and the matter would be over, but there were contacts from outside Parliament and pressure was put on the Parliament presidency to disrupt the session, so it is unlikely that Parliament will accomplish anything.”[/size]
[size=45]Al-Jubouri reveals that there are “more than 140 suspended laws that are still on the shelf, postponed from the first session until now. Among these laws are the Popular Mobilization Law, Oil and Gas Law, the Federal Court, the Election Commission, Social Justice, Retirement, Salary Scale, and many other laws that are still on the shelves and have not been decided.”[/size]
[size=45]He continued, “Therefore, nothing is expected from Parliament. It will hold its sessions and will be busy with matters and discuss laws that have no bearing on people’s lives. Consequently, the conflict and argument over the election of the Speaker of Parliament will begin, and so on. Meanwhile, a large number of representatives have begun to wander around the ministries and have become fixers in order to complete some transactions for their voters, and this is not the role of the representative.”[/size]
[size=45]Al-Jubouri continues his talk: “The other part of the representatives has become political analysts who appear on satellite channels analyzing instead of legislating laws and monitoring actions in light of the corruption that has reached the highest level. Therefore, the state of parliament is like the state of the provincial councils, which have not accomplished anything and part of them are paralyzed and have not been decided yet, as is the case in the provinces of Diyala and Kirkuk, for which no governor has been elected to date.”[/size]
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