Parliament passes committee proposal to revoke articles under SC case, move amendment to different clause

Parliament has voted in favour of passing the General Purposes Committee's proposal to remove the three articles that are under consideration of the Supreme Court, and to instead include the matter of counting total number of parliamentarians in a separate existing article of the Parliament regulations.

Last year's amendment's stipulated that the total number of MPs would be counted without including any constituency if the representative seat has fallen vacant.

When seven members of parliament resigned from their posts after being appointed to positions in the new administration, the total strength of the current session of parliament came down from 87 to 80. As a result, the quorum of parliament sittings also came down.

The Attorney General had moved to the apex court seeking quashing of the three articles added to Article 49 of the Parliament Regulations, maintaining that the phrasing of "total number of parliamentarians" mentioned in these three articles is in contravention of the Constitution's Article 71.

After the Supreme Court issued an interim stay order on the implementation of these articles and scheduled the hearings for this case on February 25, the General Committee of Parliament on Thursday approved the removal of these three articles from the rules.

Instead, the committee approved adding a similar clause to Article 242, that while counting the total number of members, vacant seats will not be counted if there is not sufficient time, as stated in law, remaining in a term for another member to be elected to the seat.

The parliament also previously announced that it would not abide by the Supreme Court's interim order.

Supreme Court has since decided to bring forward the hearing. The hearing is now scheduled be held on next Wednesday, February 21, at 10:00 hrs.