Speaker of House of Representatives Holds Meeting with Chairpersons of Parliamentary Groups and Caucus on Tuesday, May 12th, 2020

Speaker of the House of Representatives Habib El Malki held a meeting with the chairpersons of the parliamentary groups and caucus on Tuesday, May 12^th, 2020. The meeting was devoted to discussing the control and legislation activities of the House, as well as the organization of its sittings.

Regarding Government Control, the meeting discussed the organization of the agenda of the sitting that will be held on Monday, May 18^th, intending to achieve efficiency, complementarity, and good time management in the relation between the two Houses of Parliament. In this respect, the meeting discussed the convention of two plenary sittings on Monday, May 18^th.

The first one will be devoted to weekly oral questions covering national education, vocational training, higher education, and scientific research, and will be held at 11:30 a.m. following the format of questions followed by a debate.

The second sitting will be held under the provisions of Article 68 of the Constitution, at the request of the Head of Government, jointly with the House of Councilors, and will be devoted to the presentation by the Head of Government of information on the developments of managing the sanitary lockdown after May 20^th.

As for Legislation, the participants organized the sitting held on Wednesday, May 13^th, and devoted to voting on the Government bill enacting special provisions on the contracts relating to travel and tourist stay, and on the contracts relating to air transportation of passengers.

Besides, the components of the House taking part in this meeting recalled the legislative record established at the initiative of parliamentary groups and caucus in the form of parliamentary bills that fulfill the legislative needs in social, economic, managerial, and procedural sectors. These bills covered laws on contracts and engagements, consumer protection, compensation for workplace accidents, the state of public health emergency, the pharmaceutical code, and the framework law on the healthcare system. Most of the other bills covered the adjustment of the convention of the deliberative meetings of local communes and shareholders’ meetings of limited liability companies with the sanitary lockdown.

As regards the procedures of convening control and legislation sittings, the Speaker of the House and its components reiterated their appreciation of the willingness of the deputies to participate in the works of the House actively. They also reaffirmed that the adopted precautionary measures are temporary and aim, first and foremost, to protect their safety. The Speaker of the House and the other participants reaffirmed their keenness to find adequate formulas on the matter.

Concerning legislation sittings, the Speaker of the House and the chairpersons of the parliamentary groups and caucus reiterated their commitment to following the provisions of the Constitution and the Rules of Procedure of the House.