Parliament extraordinary session opens Sunday

AMMAN — The Lower House is scheduled to hold its first meeting in the new extraordinary session on Sunday, with the draft laws on municipalities and decentralisation included on the agenda. 

On July 21, a Royal Decree was issued summoning Parliament to convene in an extraordinary session as of August 1 to endorse several bills.

Lawmakers are also expected to discuss the draft laws on the ratification of the Vienna Convention on Civil Liability, the integrity and anti-corruption bill, the 2002 temporary law of the national committee for international and humanitarian law, and draft amendments to the (judicial) Execution Law. 

The House was scheduled to discuss the 2015 decentralisation and municipalities’ bills in the last extraordinary session, which concluded in June. 

However, due to a dispute between the government and the Lower House over the draft decentralisation law, the two sides agreed to postpone deliberating the reform-oriented bill to the next extraordinary session.

Parliament’s agenda for the new session also includes the draft law governing money exchange works for 2015, the 2015 draft law on the transfer of the revenues of government departments and units, the draft law on the prohibition of chemical weapons for 2014, the 2015 draft law on conscription and military reserve service, the agricultural risk-management bill and the draft appropriations law.

The draft decentralisation law is designed to expand the community’s participation through establishing executive councils headed by the governor in every governorate and a governorate council, 75 per cent of whose members will be elected, according to the bill as drafted by the government. 

The remaining members are appointed by the Cabinet.

Each governorate council, whose term is four years, will be in charge of endorsing strategic and executive plans concerning the governorate and referred by the executive council, under the bill.

It will also endorse the governorate’s budget; oversee the implementation of each municipality’s budget; and decide on needed service, investment and development projects.