President returns Bills on Parliament Privileges and Political Parties to the parliament

President Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik has returned the Political Party Bill and the Parliament Privileges and Powers Bill to the parliament for reconsideration.

This has been confirmed by the President’s Office. A statement issued by the President’s Office in this regard states that the bills were returned requesting the parliament to revise the bills and to consider the advice of the Attorney General.

The letter sent by the president to the Speaker of Parliament Abdullah Shahid to return the bills said that while article 11 (a) of the bill states that signatures of 10,000 party member applicants should be presented to the Commission in order to register a political party, article 30 (a) of the constitution states that every citizen has the right to establish, manage and participate in activities of political parties. The letter said that according to article 16 of the constitution, such rights and freedoms can only be restricted to reasonable extents acceptable in a democratic society by a law enacted by the parliament in a manner that is not contrary to the constitution.

The president noted that article 7 of the regulation on political parties in effect currently states that the number of members required for a party to be registered is 3,000, and said that it is not clear in the regulation what this number is based on or how it was determined. He highlighted that the figure of 10,000 in the new bill on political parties also does not give any reasons for increasing the number.

He noted that while article 35 (b) of the bill states that funds from the state budget should be provided as per the policy described in article 35 (a) to parties that fulfil the requirement of 10,000 members within the 3 months given to do so after the bill comes into effect, the bill lacks any article that states that 3 months should be given to parties that do not meet the requirement of 10,000 members to meet this mark.

Referring to the policies in effect on dissolving political parties formed and operated within the legal structure, the president said that countries around the world allow dissolving parties only under special circumstances which include serious issues such as constitutional sustainability of the state, issues related to independence, threats to the nation’s constitutional structure, or racial, social and religious divisions in the country. The president noted that once the bill is ratified, some parties will be dissolved due to no ‘wrong-doing’ of their own, and without being given the opportunity to reform the parties to fit the legal structure.

The president highlighted that while article 36 (a) of the bill states that a 1,000 sq ft land plot in Male’ will be given by Male’ City Council to parties that have 20,000 members for establishing an office and carrying out political activities, article 4 of the Land Act states the purposes for which land can be assigned in Male’, and this does not include political purposes.

Referring to the Bill on Privileges and Powers of the Parliament, the president said that while the bill is defined as ‘the law that describes some of the privileges and powers of the parliament under privileges and powers guaranteed to the parliament in the constitution’, some issues included in the bill are special provisions to MPs rather than privileges of MPs or parliament employees.

The president said that while article 4 (b) of the bill describes activities that breach the privileges of the parliament as crimes, some of the activities described in this regard are not clearly determined as crimes; and as the penalty for some of these crimes are imprisonment, it is not appropriate that the activities categorised as crimes are ambiguous.

While article 6 of the bill states that security and protection should be provided to MPs by state security forces, to obligate the provision of security and protection by state security forces is not within the limits of article 105 (c) of the constitution, said the president.

He further states that while article 12 of the bill states that if an MP is suspected of a crime he should be checked with due respect and that if he is to be checked in a public place, this should only be done if suspicions are strong enough to prove that he is guilty, and while the purpose of this article is to end misuse of MPs’ political exposure; this could, under some circumstances, obstruct legal checks conducted under criminal procedures.

The president said that while article 16 states that an MP who is serving a criminal sentence of less than 12 months should be produced for parliament sittings and committee meetings, an MP convicted of a crime and sentenced to a period even less than 12 months will also be considered a criminal before the law, and thus under this circumstance, he would be a criminal representing the people at the parliament.