Berri, March 14 MPs Bicker over June 8 Session

Deputy Speaker Farid Makari and some members of the Parliament Bureau Committee, MP Ahmed Fatfat, Marwan Hamadeh, Antoine Zahra, and Serge Toursakissian condemned on Thursday Speaker Nabih Berri’s decision to hold a parliament session on June 8, labeling it as “a blow to democratic parliamentary practices in Lebanon.”

They said in a statement: “His decision violates the privileges of the committee and parliament’s internal system in that he devised next week’s schedule by himself.”

“The committee therefore believes that the schedule that was distributed today at parliament has no legal grounds,” it added.

“Such practices fuel our conviction that the June 8 session is a violation of parliamentary norms and the Lebanese constitution,” it said.

Later Thusrday, the parliament’s general-secretariat responded to the statement, noting that the meeting held by the Parliament Bureau Committee on Wednesday “did not tackle the agenda of the June 8 plenary session, despite the fact that the members were briefed by the speaker about it and that the agenda has been distributed to all the members.”

“The members who issued a statement today (Thursday) had only voiced their rejection to hold the session, although it is a matter that exclusively falls within the speaker’s jurisdiction,” the general-secretariat added.

“This subject was clarified to all the members of the bureau during the meeting and they were also told that in case no quorum was present (during the June 8 session), the speaker would call for further sessions,” it noted.