Constitutional Amendment Bill of 2013 in abeyance
Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Friday June 17, 2016 14:54
In 2013, former Lobatse legislator Nehemiah Modubule successfully moved a bill asking Parliament to allow Members of Parliament to continue as members of the National Assembly up to and including the last day preceding a general election notwithstanding the dissolution of Parliament.
The Bill was discussed and passed during the 10th Parliament.
Parliament however through its legal advisor after the debate in the National Assembly passed it but as the Constitution dictates it can only become law after the President has assented to it.
Currently Section 68 (1) (a) reads: “upon dissolution of Parliament” and the proposal was to replace the current (a) with the words “on the day immediately preceding the next general election.”
However the Bill has not yet been returned to Parliament or the Attorney General wrote to National Assembly on the view about it. Section 87 (2) of the Constitution states: “when a Bill is presented to the President for assent he/she shall either assent or withhold his/her assent” and Section 87 (3) says “where the president withholds his/her assent to a bill, the bill shall be returned to the National Assembly.”
The Constitution further states that where the President withholds his/her assent to a Bill the National Assembly resolves within six months of the Bill being returned to it that the bill should again be presented for assent, the President shall assent to it within 21 days of its being again presented to him or her, unless he or she sooner dissolves Parliament.
The deputy speaker of the National Assembly Kagiso Molatlhegi confirmed in an interview that the Bill was passed by Parliament in 2013. “It is true the Bill has not been returned to Parliament. Parliament can only debate it if it’s returned to it by the President through the Attorney General. We haven’t made a follow up to the Attorney General about the said Bill. I believe that the Attorney General knows exactly what should be done,” Molatlhegi said.
He said if the President had agreed or signed it, the National Assembly would have known because it was going to be a law. “Maybe the Attorney General is still looking at it so that she can advise the president and Parliament on it,” he said.
Efforts to solicit comment from the Attorney General have proved futile after a month of enquiry.