BEIRUT: Speaker Nabih Berri will chair a meeting of Parliament’s Secretariat Tuesday to discuss the agenda for a legislative session on urgent draft laws which the speaker will call after the legislature’s regular term began on March 17.
The meeting, to be held at Berri’s Ain al-Tineh residence, comes amid opposition expressed by some Christian parties to legislative activity during the 10-month-long presidential vacuum.
The meeting also comes amid sharp divisions between March 8 and March 14 MPs over the interpretation of what has been known among lawmakers as “necessary legislation” in the absence of a president.
Berri insists on holding legislative sessions because he wants to put an end to the continued obstruction of Parliament’s role during the presidential vacuum. He said the agenda for a legislative session would be agreed during Tuesday’s meeting.
Future MP Serge Torsarkissian, a member of Parliament’s Secretariat, said necessary legislation should be confined to very limited issues such as the 2015 draft budget, draft laws relating to the Lebanese Army and a new electoral law.
He said international agreements that would bring financial benefits to the state treasury should be approved before they are canceled.
According to Torsarkissian, draft laws approved recently by the joint parliamentary committees, such as the food safety bill and a bill that made public sector contract workers full-timers, are not part of “necessary legislation.”
Members of Parliament’s Secretariat, who are mostly March 14 lawmakers – except for MP Michel Moussa, who is close to Berri – are going to Tuesday’s meeting with this mentality, he said.
However, lawmakers are still split over the concept of “necessary legislation.” The Kataeb Party bloc sees that the term “necessary legislation” pertains to the financial and political authority, or budget and election draft laws.
The Lebanese Forces bloc sees that the public sector’s salary scale bill, which has not yet been approved by the joint committees, can be added to “necessary legislation” because it is a social matter.
Torsarkissian said he expected Parliament’s Secretariat, in agreement with Berri, to decide to include on the agenda of the legislative session all draft proposals pertaining to financial matters, namely the state’s financial relations with donor countries.
He pointed out that there are draft loan agreements with the World Bank and the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development to finance projects within set deadlines which Lebanon could lose if they are not approved by Parliament.
Parliamentary sources said Parliament’s Secretariat is expected to agree on a concise agenda, ruling out the 2015 draft budget from discussion because it is not ready yet.
The sources also said a new electoral law would not be included on the agenda because so far there has been no agreement between the rival factions on any draft law or proposal.
Once an agreement is reached on a short agenda as widely expected, a quorum will be secured for a legislative session to be called by Berri, the sources said.
The sources said even a boycott by Kataeb or LF lawmakers would not scuttle any parliamentary session because many Christian MPs, including those form MP Michel Aoun’s bloc, would still attend.
Separately, MP Walid Jumblatt’s parliamentary bloc has yet to decide on government plans to either extend the terms of military and security chiefs or appoint new figures.
The issue of the possible extension of the terms of Army commander Gen. Jean Kahwagi and Internal Security Forces chief Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Basbous was discussed during a meeting last week between Aoun and Jumblatt at the latter’s residence in Clemenceau, according to Agriculture Minister Akram Chehayeb, who belongs to Jumblatt’s bloc.
Asked if Aoun and Jumblatt agreed on the issue of military and security chiefs, Chehayeb said in an interview published in An-Nahar newspaper Monday: “The Army is the country’s cornerstone, especially in these security circumstances where the Army is deployed in all Lebanese areas to face the Israeli enemy in the south and on the northern and eastern border [with Syria].”
He added that his bloc was against a vacuum in the military and security commands.
“We are against vacuum in the country. There is more than one opinion on this issue, including raising the retirement age of military personnel by Parliament, the extension of their terms by a decision by the interior and defense ministers, or the appointment of new officers by the Cabinet. So far, the picture is unclear. We will take our decision when [the picture] becomes clearer among the political parties,” Chehayeb said.
Aoun, leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, strongly opposes plans to extend the terms of both Basbous, who retires on June 5, and Kahwagi, who retires on Sept. 23, and has called for the appointment of two new officers in the Army and ISF commands. Aoun is pushing for the appointment of his son-in-law, Shamel Roukoz, the head of the Army Commando Unit, as new Army commander.
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