East African Legislative Assembly rules set for major review
The East Africa Legislative Assembly during a session in Arusha, Tanzania. PHOTO | FILE
What you need to know:
- The review has been necessitated by the expanded East African Community (EAC) which currently has eight member states.
Arusha. The East African Legislative Assembly (Eala) intends to review its Rules of Procedure.
The review has been necessitated by the expanded East African Community (EAC) which currently has eight member states.
The admission of more countries to the bloc means an expanded mandate for the EAC and, by extension, Eala.
The review process, spearheaded by Eala's Committee on Legal, Rules and Privileges, may see increased Standing Committees, among others.
A report by the Committee said the current rules used by the Assembly have been overtaken by events and are no longer workable.
Ideally, the Eala Rules of Procedure dictate swift implementations in line with the number of partner states in the bloc, among others.
The first edition of Eala's Rules of Procedure was adopted by the first Assembly in 2001, when it was constituted.
The 2001 editions were amended in 2008 following the admission of Burundi and Rwanda to the EAC the previous year.
In 2015, the 3rd Assembly adopted the 2015 edition of the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly which is currently applying.
With the admission of South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 2016 and 2022 respectively, the Assembly needs new Rules.
"The rules have also to be reviewed due to the expanded mandate of the EAC and Eala," report obtained by The Citizen says. While considering the proposed amendments, the Committee reviewed various instruments, including the EAC Treaty.
It also considers various laws of the Community and rules of other jurisdictions, such as the Parliaments of Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya.
Others are the rules of the Pan African Parliament (PAP) and the Parliamentary Forum of the Southern Africa Development Community (Sadc).
Eala has already constituted a technical team to undertake a comprehensive review of its Rules of Procedure.
The team has been tasked with taking into account the gaps, inconsistencies and experiences of the Assembly and best practices from national and regional assemblies.
It has been agreed that the (new) Rules of Procedure for Eala be adopted at the beginning of the Assembly in order to guide the proceedings.
The Committee was found out that some of the Rules currently used by Eala were borrowed from the national assemblies of the partner states.
This was found to be wrong because Eala being a regional Assembly "cannot be directly compared to a National Assembly."
There is, therefore, a need to develop parliamentary traditions and practices of the Assembly "with regional character that are customised to the traditions of the EAC."
Another anomaly found was that the current Eala committees were established in the First Assembly in 2001 when the House had only 27 members from three partner states.
Currently, the Assembly has a total of 63 members from seven member countries and is set to increase to 72 following the recent admission of Somalia to the bloc.
