House rejects Legal Committee’s changes to its bylaw, passes two bills

AMMAN — The Lower House on Tuesday rejected a proposal by its Legal Committee to extend the term of the Chamber's permanent office to two years instead of one.

The House, upon a request by a group of MPs, has tasked the Legal Committee with amending some of its bylaws, so that the term of the speaker and permanent office members is the same.

Under the 2016 Constitutional amendments, the office term for the House Speaker was extended to two years instead of one, and they can be elected for another two-year term.

The permanent office is made up of the House's speaker, his two deputies and two assistants. 

Before the bylaws were referred back again to the Legal Committee for further review, its president, MP Hussein Qaisi said the panel's proposal to extend the permanent office's term was "what deputies wanted".

Also recommended by the Legal Committee, the number of the House's permanent committees' members is reduced to 15 down from 20. The financial committee will be merged with the economic and investment committee, and the education and culture committee and the youth and sports committee will also be merged into one committee.

Also on Tuesday, the House passed the 2017 amendments to the State Lands Registration Law under which the Council of Ministers is granted the authorisation to exemption from land registration fees.

The House also endorsed the 2018 amendments to the State Lawsuits Management Law and referred a draft law abolishing the IT Utilisation Law to its Administrative Committee. The draft law merges the National IT Centre with the Telecommunications Ministry.

Attending the session, Prime Minister Hani Mulki said that the decision to merge the two government institutions into one entity is to reduce costs and unify the administrative decision.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Prime Ministry Affairs Jamal Sarayreh also said that the government is committed not to establish new public independent commissions.

Merging the public independent commissions with ministries and other state institutions under a comprehensive restructuring plan has been a pressing demand by Parliament and political parties.