Committees News

26 November – Three committees held a meeting to prepare their joint report on the Commercial Advertising Bill (draft law), which will be scheduled for debate and discussion at a Parliament sitting in the near future.

25 November - Parliament's Reconstruction and Investment Committee held their first regular meeting since being established as a standalone committee earlier this month. The members discussed their priorities of looking into road, highway and other construction and into investment projects. 

The culture and municipalities committees continue to work on the Bill on Commercial Advertising in the Kurdistan Region. 

Kurdistan Parliament MPs and Canada’s Institute on Governance held a workshop to discuss the violations of Kurdistan’s rights in Iraq’s Federal Financial Management Law.

Kurdistan Parliament Deputy Speaker Hemin Hawrami on 20th November chaired the elections of the chairs, vice-chairs and rapporteurs (the bureaux) of four newly formed committees, and elections to rearrange the bureaux of seven existing committees.

Parliament's health and legislative committees will ask the Kurdistan Regional Government to give its opinions on the Bill on Patients' Rights and Duties. 

The Culture Committee meet the Head of the Kurdistan Board of Audit to look into the spending of the special budget for Erbil as the 2014 capital of culture. The Education Committee visited the supervisory unit for Syriac language Education in Duhok to help resolve their problems. The Martyrs Affairs Committee met with lawyers of former political prisoners who call on the government to grant them their privileges as provided by law.  

The Kurdistan Parliament’s Relations and Kurdish Diaspora Committee on 17 November organized a workshop chaired by Deputy Speaker Hemin Hawrami to brainstorm on a Kurdish Diaspora bill.

A committee held a press conference on Parliament's successful court case against the violations in the amended Iraq Provincial Elections Law. The Culture Committee ran a special workshop on the Bill on Commercial Advertising. The Agriculture Committee discussed the need to formalise the status of agricultural employees. The Peshmerga Committee looked into the killing of two Peshmerga soldiers. 

Speaker Rewas Faiq on 13 November chaired a sitting of the Kurdistan Parliament at which four bills had their first readings, and MPs voted on the redistribution of committee memberships, following the creation of four new committees. Jiwan Rojbayani (KDP) discussed the successful court case overturning amendments to the Iraqi Provincial Elections Law and the danger of amendments to Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution. Karwan Gazneyi (PUK) discussed smuggling of oil and oil products, and called for transparency in oil revenue and the Erbil-Baghdad disagreements on it.