House completes 81% of bills listed on agenda — speaker

AMMAN — Lower House Speaker Atef Tarawneh on Monday said that the house has accomplished 81 per cent of the legislations that were listed during its extraordinary session, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

During the session, prorogued by His Majesty King Abdullah as of August 13, MPs endorsed 13 draft laws out 16, the leading lawmaker said. 

Meanwhile, the oversight aspect of the House’s job was also active during the session, he said, citing 52 queries the government responded to out of 104 filed by MPs.

He noted that the legislations were related to improving judiciary and enhancing the rule of law.

The House committees held 97 meetings, of which 28 were by the legal committee, according to Petra.  

The Parliament convened for an extraordinary session on July 4 to discuss laws aimed to reform the judicial system. 

The pieces of legislation in question were part of a 16-bill package to improve the performance of the judicial system based on recommendations by the Royal Committee for Developing the Judiciary and Enhancing the Rule of Law, set up by His Majesty King Abdullah in October last year. 

The key law on the Parliament's agenda was the Penal Code, including the controversial Article 308, which was removed after a heated debate.

The article stipulated that if a valid marriage contract was held between the rapist and his victim and the marriage lasted for three years at least, the charges would be dropped and if a verdict had already been issued, the punishment would be suspended.

The new version of the Penal Code, as endorsed by the two Chambers of Parliament, has also seen the introduction of community service and allowing the use of electronic tracking bracelets for first-time offenders.