Chairman of the Royal Committee to Modernise the Political System Samir Rifai announced Tuesday that the panel has commenced work and will submit its recommendations before October 1 in implementation of the royal letter ordering its formation.
The committee’s mission, according to the royal letter, is “to put forward new draft election and political parties laws, look into the necessary constitutional amendments connected to the two laws and the mechanisms of parliamentary work and provide recommendations on developing legislation regulating local administration, expanding participation in decision-making, and creating a political and legislative environment conducive to the active engagement of youth and women in public life.”
Rifai told a press conference at the Royal Cultural Centre today that the responsibility of the 92-member committee is to develop consensual draft laws that guarantee the gradual transition to fully achieve future goals and serve the citizens in their present and future.
The committee’s efforts through its six sub-committees, he said, are focused on presenting outputs on the pursuit of the development and modernisation process that ensures the right of Jordanians to practice a parliamentary and partisan life that advances their democracy and lives and helps to fulfil their wishes as the country enters its second centennial, as asserted by His Majesty in his letter to form the committee.
Rifai said the committee’s members are all fully aware that they are facing a historic mission towards the country and the citizens, adding “we are all working within this framework.”
He said that His Majesty ordered the committee to present a vision within a clear timeframe to meet the set goals, pointing out that its task is to lay out a political system that establishes a culture of citizenship and strong platform-based parties in the Lower House of Parliament.
The largely diverse makeup of the committee, he said, reflects the richness of society and Jordanians’ intellectual and cultural backgrounds in all their spectra and origins, adding that the committee is the first whose outcome His Majesty guarantees will be adopted by the government and promptly passed to parliament.
He assured that the committee functions without outside influences or interferences, and that it has no ready-made draft laws, noting the complementary work of the sub-committees.
Rifai said the committee takes guidance from the Discussion Papers of His Majesty the King, which put forward a progressive vision for modernisation and development, to come up with a legislative framework that lays the foundations of an effective partisan life persuasive of voters to arrive at a parliament with platform-based blocs and currents, and to lay the ground for an advanced phase in how the executive authority functions based on the constitution.
Rifai, a former Prime Minister, said that the government had already sent a draft municipalities and decentralisation bill to the Lower House, adding that the draft political parties and election laws have nothing to do with the current legislation, and that the issue of quota now being discussed concerns the women’s quota.
“Everyone agrees that the partisan culture is weak, and that partisan work needs platforms,” he said, adding that the committee’s members currently pay visits across the country to be tuned to all views and suggestions.
He stressed the need for the current Nineteenth Jordanian Parliament to pass the new draft laws, noting that the members of the legislative authority “are the ones who ultimately decide whether to accept our recommendations,” and adding that the parties need time to contest the elections after the passage of the new bill.
Rifai said that the women’s sub-committee completed its recommendations and is to pass them the other sub-committees- the parties, election and local administration, adding that the youth sub-committee will pass its own proposals to the others after finalizing its work.
He also pointed to ideas under debate about the election and parties drafts, and said that the two ad hoc sub-committees will meet next week to examine their proposals.
Source: Jordan News Agency