Legal Committee passes constitutional amendments

AMMAN — The head of the Parliamentary Legal Committee, Abdel Moneim Al-Awdat, said that the committee has decided that “there is no need for what was stated in Article 3 of the draft constitutional amendments submitted by the government, which stipulated that His Majesty the King should be the head of this council (The National Security and Foreign Policy Council) because the King is the head of the state and the head of the executive authority.” In a press conference at the Lower House on Sunday, Awdat added that the committee decided to “change the name of the council to become the ‘National Security Council’, provided that it meets in case of necessity and at the invitation of the King.”اضافة اعلان

“The amendments related to the King’s appointment of two members to the National Security Council did not grant new prerogatives to the King, but the amendment came to show how these prerogatives should be exercised,” Awadat said.

But it remains unclear who will now head this new council as the government will now submit a special regulation detailing its formation and its scope of work.
The committee also approved the reduction of the term of the Speaker of the Lower House from two years to one. It approved giving new powers to the Independent Election Commission (IEC), which will consider requests to establish political parties instead of the Ministry of Political Development and Parliamentary Affairs. 

The committee approved the amendment related to the resignation of the government, under which the House of Representatives is dissolved before the last four months preceding the end of parliament’s natural term. It also approved granting the Senate or the Lower House, with the approval of at least a quarter of members, the right to directly challenge the constitutionality of laws and regulations in force at the Constitutional Court.

The committee also approved an amendment that gives the right to a quarter of members of the Lower House to call for a vote of confidence in the government instead of 10 members.

The committee kept the addition of the term “Jordanian women” to the title of Chapter Two of the Constitution.

The draft constitutional amendments will now go to the Lower House for debate, which is expected to be less controversial after the committee’s recent changes.

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