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Berri to call session on urgent draft legislation

 

Hasan Lakkis

BEIRUT: Speaker Nabih Berri will soon call for a Parliament session to discuss urgent draft laws, his visitors said Tuesday, despite opposition expressed by some Christian parties to legislative activity during the presidential vacuum.

Berri said he would call on Parliament’s Secretariat to meet at the start of the legislature’s regular term, which begins March 17, to set the agenda for the session which will carry out “necessary legislating.”

The speaker explained that the agenda would include a food safety draft law, the new salary scale for the public sector if parliamentary committees finalized it and draft laws to combat money laundering along with other urgent and necessary bills.

Berri said he had no hope that Parliament’s 20th session to elect a president, scheduled for Wednesday, would see a better fate than the previous 19.

He expressed regret that Parliament would meet for the 20th time to elect a president with no success.

Earlier, Lebanese Forces MP Antoine Zahra said that his group opposed holding legislative sessions while there was a presidential void unless it was to pass vital draft laws, which he said were only three.

“I am interested in stressing the stance of the Lebanese Forces party and my stance as a member of Parliament’s Secretariat … it is impossible that we approve normal legislative activity in the absence of a president,” Zahra told a news conference at Parliament.

“Articles 73, 74 and 75 of the Constitution state that Parliament becomes an electoral committee once [presidential] vacuum happens,” Zahra said. “There should not be [a different] interpretation when the text is clear on this point.”

But the Batroun lawmaker said his group supported what he called “exceptional” legislative activities to endorse pressing and vital draft laws.

He said LF MPs would only take part in a Parliament session to endorse a new election law, the 2015 draft budget and the long awaited new salary scale for the public sector.

The LF stance regarding legislative sessions echoes that of theKataeb Party and Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai.

Speaking to The Daily Star, several MPs said that holding a legislative session, which may be boycotted by the LF and the Kataeb Party, would not be in violation of the National Pact of power sharing between Muslims and Christians.

This is because many Christian MPs, including those from Michel Aoun’s bloc, would still attend the session.

Former Minister Salim Jreissati, who is close to Aoun, welcomed Berri’s decision to resume what he called “necessary” legislative activity.

Speaking after attending the weekly meeting of Aoun’s Change and Reform Parliamentary bloc, Jreissati detailed a number of draft laws his group deemed necessary.

Among these drafts is a law to restore the citizenship of people of Lebanese origin, a law to provide the Army with weapons, financial laws, amending the rent law, the salary scale, a law for comprehensive social protection and loan agreements.

“The vacancy in the presidency does not mean that other authorities should refrain from carrying out their duties which serve the necessary and urgent interests of the people,” Jreissati said.

Parliament’s joint committees have already finalized studying other important draft laws which need the endorsement of Parliament, such as a draft law to make contract workers at the public sector full-timers, foreign property ownership draft law and draft agreements with the World Bank and the Kuwait Fund For Arab Economic Development.

The MPs expect that Parliament’s Secretariat would reach a compromise regarding the agenda of the upcoming session which would include some draft laws viewed as vital by the LF among other draft bills.

As for the dialogue between Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement and LF rival, Jreissati said: “Dialogue with the Lebanese Forces is ongoing based on the following [principles]: The republic comes first and then the guarantee. That is, who guarantees [the survival of the republic] and what is the implementation mechanism?”

Jreissati said that both groups were discussing these points right now, adding that the final touches were being put to a declaration of content to be announced by the two political factions.

Meanwhile, the Future parliamentary bloc of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri said after its weekly meeting that political efforts should currently focus on the election of a new president, indirectly blaming Hezbollah and other groups boycotting Parliament sessions to elect a president for the vacuum.

“They and only they are responsible for paralysis and the ongoing vacuum in the state’s top post,” a statement by the bloc said, urging the boycotting MPs to attend Wednesday’s Parliament session.

The bloc reiterated its commitment to the ongoing dialogue with Hezbollah, saying the talks paved the way to solve two major problems Lebanon was facing: presidential vacuum and sectarian tension.