Lower House pass Bill establishing constitutional review commission

The lower House, yesterday, passed a Bill determining set-up, regulation and mandate of a special commission to support lawmakers carry out constitutional amendments. The commission, which will report to Parliament will comprise seven people with knowledge of the constitutional law. The Bill determines commissions’ mission, organisation and functioning. The development follows countrywide consultations by lawmakers, where citizens called for the lifting of the presidential term limits. Parliament received petitions from over 3.7 million citizens who want the Constitution amended to allow President Paul Kagame to run for another term in office after 2017. Explaining the relevance of the Bill to the legislators, MP Samuel Musabyimana, the chairperson of the committee in charge of assessment of deputies’ activities, conduct and legislative immunity, said the Private Member’s Bill was timely and is supposed to be guided by the law. Musabyimana said the plenary assembly of each chamber of Parliament resolved that the Constitution of June 4, 2003, be amended, and that a commission for constitutional review be established. “We also resolved that such a commission be established by law for a definite period of time. The commission shall have a four-month term of office to respect the wish of Rwandans to speed up the process of amending Article 101 of the Constitution,” he said. He further stated that the President can extend commissioners’ mandate through a presidential decree should the assigned duties not be completed in the four months. In case the Bill is approved by Parliament, it will be subject to Cabinet review, which, with the approval of the President, will then endorse the seven commissioners. The independent commissioners, who will report to the Parliament, will be given offices and monthly remunerations, according to Abbas Mukama, the Deputy Speaker of Parliament in charge of administration and finance. Although this comes amidst the fiscal year, Parliament, with the support from the Public Service and Labour Ministry, will handle daily business of the commissioners with available resources. According to MP Mukama, the commissioners will be paid using recurrent expenditures of the Parliament, which, in turn, will claim reimbursement from the Ministry of Finance. “We will pay them using our own money for miscellaneous expenditures to observe the urgency of people’s call, and then we will engage the Ministry of Finance once an activity comes to its end,” he said. The deputy Speaker further explained that Parliament decided to take over the task due to public demand and after consideration of the millions of petitioners who called for a referendum and the scrapping of term limits. “This falls within our mandate as stipulated in laws governing the functions of the Parliament,” he added. The proposed Bill, in its chapter 2, states that the commission will not have full autonomy because the right to initiate the amendment of the Constitution rests with the Parliament. Should the amendment be passed by both chambers of the Parliament (Chamber of Deputies and the Senate), the President will announce when the people can go to a referendum upon consultations with the Supreme Court. editorial@newtimes.co.rw

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Lower House pass Bill establishing constitutional review commission