At opening of autumn 2022 legislative session Speaker Dr. Rewaz Faiq: "Forming the Constitution drafting committee, Election Law and Election Commission are the priorities"
Kurdistan Parliament Speaker Dr. Rewaz Faiq on 1 September 2022 opened the new autumn session of Parliament, following the summer recess. Deputy Speaker Dr. Hemin Hawrami and Secretary Muna Kahveci presided alongside the Speaker.
The sitting began with a minute’s silence to honour the martyrs of Kurdistan and Iraq, followed by the Kurdistan national anthem.
Speaker Faiq calls for dialogue in Baghdad to resolve conflict
Speaker Faiq said, "We begin the fourth autumn legislative session while federal Iraq is in the midst of great difficulties, with the possibility and expectation of an undesirable outcome due to the failure to make wise, logical decisions or engage in constructive dialogue as the rational way to reach a solution. This is destabilizing, a political, societal, psychological, economic, and security instability that makes it hard to predict the consequences. The country is heading towards an unknown destiny.”
"Meanwhile, the Kurdistan Region is part of a federal state that is at risk in all senses, and we cannot think that we will be unaffected," Dr. Faiq said.
The Speaker called on the Kurdish political parties and forces to unite their discourse in order to deal with the new situation in Iraq and try to play a positive role in calm tensions between the conflicting sides, and to protect Kurdistan Region from the fall-out.
Speaker sets out this legislative session's first tasks
Speaker Faiq emphasized the need to support Kurdistan Region’s constitutional institutions, and especially to support the Government’s efforts to strengthen the Peshmerga and domestic security forces so that they can prevent security vacuums, especially in the disputed areas.
Speaker Faiq also said, "Our duty as Parliament, and the duty of the President of the Region and of the Government as constitutional institutions given the confidence of Parliament, is to be concerned with the wishes and demands of our citizens, and with the process of reforming the political, economic, administrative and financial system, and to continuously make these our aims and responsibilities, undeterred by challenges and obstacles. Just as the public’s responsibility is to avoid undermining Kurdistan Region’s stability and to protect its constitutional status, what has been done should not be ignored and we will continue to monitor the institutions, law breaking, corruption and waste by anyone, and to cooperate with and support the official institutions in all their efforts and initiatives to confront corruption and misuse of public property and assets."
The Speaker continued, "We need MPs and the parliamentary parties to close legislative gaps, correct shortcomings in existing legislation, and to consider serving the current needs of the people of Kurdistan as the basis for proposing legislation. At the same time the government should send the general budget bill to Parliament and no longer under any pretext collect income or spend it outside a budget law. In any case, the Government’s responsibility is to send the budget bill to Parliament, and MPs’ and committees’ responsibility is to scrutinize and follow up on the sending of the bill.”
Dr. Faiq explained in detail Parliament’s priorities and first actions for this new legislative session. She highlighted Parliament’s duties, achievements, and challenges in terms of the bills, legislative proposals and draft resolutions that have been submitted to Parliament’s presidency so far, and the topics that MPs or the committees have asked to deliberate on with the Government, under Article 66 of Parliament’s Internal Rules of Procedure, or that the Government itself wishes to discuss, under Article 53.
Heads of parliamentary parties present their concerns and legislative priorities
The head of each parliamentary party set out their party’s priorities, with some of them discussing the need to draft the Kurdistan Constitution, receive the budget bill from the KRG, and to implement the Reform Law.
They also highlighted the challenges to holding the next Kurdistan Parliament election and the political situation in the Kurdistan Region. They emphasized the need for unity between Kurdistan’s political parties to protect the interests of the people, and Kurdistan Region’s constitutional status and territory.
Other issues raised by the heads of the parliamentary parties were: giving permanent employee status to contract and daily-rate teachers, giving public sector jobs to Kurdistan’s top three university graduates, organizing taxes and fees, reducing red tape, giving pay-grade increases to public sector employees and paying them previously unpaid months’ salaries, and organizing and unifying the Peshmerga and interior forces. They focused on the public’s concerns, on problems with public services such as electricity, water and roads, and the high price of fuel and goods in the local market.
Parliament’s Legislative Committee held the first reading of the following two bills, and Speaker Faiq asked the relevant standing committees to work on them in preparation for their second reading: The Bill on Labour in the Kurdistan Region – Iraq; and the Bill on First Amendments to the Law on the Shura Council of the Kurdistan Region – Iraq, Law No. 14 of 2008.