19/11/2024
🇱🇷--News Update--🇱🇷
Sinoe County - Senator Augustine S. Chea writes:
President Boakai got it wrong again!
Who is the "Presiding Officer" to whom the President addressed the budget submission communication and submitted the budget to?
The House of Representatives has only one Presiding Officer, and that person is the Speaker, and none other. What's my reliance? Article 49 of the Constitution, which I quote here verbatim: "The House of Representatives shall elect once every six years a Speaker who shall be the presiding officer of that body, a Deputy Speaker, and such other officers as shall ensure the proper functioning of the House." That's the law!
Where in this provision or elsewhere in the constitution is reference made to the Chief Clerk or Deputy Chief Clerk, or Deputy Speaker, or a Majority Bloc? Nowhere. The only exception is if the Speaker is incapacitated or absent or asks the the Deputy Speaker to preside.
Also, the Public Financial Management (PFM) Act of 2009 in Section 11(1) states that “The President shall submit the Proposed Budget and accompanying documents to the Legislature no later than two (2) months before the start of the fiscal year.”
So, to whom the budget submission communication to the Legislature should have been addressed? Obviously, the Speaker, who is the Head of the Legislature and Presiding Officer, in the same way as communications for the Republic of Liberia shall be addressed to the President who is the Head of State and Head of Government, and communications for the Judiciary to the Chief Justice who is the Head of the Judiciary. And that's how it has been done -- and it's the right thing to do, legally and administratively, and that has been the tradition or practice.
Therefore, the submission of the budget to the Deputy Chief Clerk who is not the Head of the Legislature or the Presiding Officer, and when the Legislature has not adjourned, is procedurally, legally, administratively, and traditionally wrong. The "majority bloc" of the HOR is also without legal authority to receive and act on the budget submitted to them by the Deputy Chief Clerk.
Does the President or his Advisors understand that submitting the budget to the majority bloc (through the Deputy Speaker) does not and cannot confer legal authority upon them to receive and act on it. Of course not, because only our constitution and laws can confer legal authority. Additionally, the anti-Koffa bloc does not have a constitutional mandate to hold "Sessions" (Plenary Sitting). Whatever they're doing at the Capitol is irregular.
There's a legal maxim that says, "What is not done legally is not done at all." So, legally, the budget hasn't been submitted to the Legislature/House of Representatives. The same applies to the "majority bloc". Anything they do or any decisions they take are void ab initio.
A group of lawmakers, whatever their number, cannot sit somewhere in or out of the main Chamber without the Speaker, who is the Presiding Officer or without his authority, to hold "Sessions" (Plenary Sitting). No.
The President's recognition of the so-called majority bloc by allowing his officials to appear before them and now the submission of the budget to them not only undermine the rule of law but has made the President a party to the conflict; and this is a recipe for disharmony between the Legislarure and the Executive. The relationship has been cordial, harmonious and collaborative hitherto.
Now to House Rule 25.10, which many have misinterpretated. It says that communications, etc. to the HOR when they are not in Session shall be addressed to or received by the Chief Clerk. Some argued that that's the President's reliance for addressing the budget submission communication and the budget document to the Deputy Chief Clerk (in the absence of the Chief Clerk). Others argued that it is either because the Legislature in not in Session due to the Speaker removal saga or because we don't hold "Sessions" on Mondays, and the President submitted the budget on Monday (yesterday), a non-Session day.
They are all wrong. The Legislature is in Session; we have not adjourned since we convened on the Second Monday in January. A Legislative Session is not the same as, and it's different from, Plenary Sitting (or what in common parlance is called or referred to as session). A Legislative Session now begins from the Second Monday in January to mid-December. Before, it was from the Second Monday in January to the 30th of September. We take intermittent breaks or go on recess during this period; and even while we are on these breaks or recess we are still in Session (not adjourned). The administrative officers and some leadership committee members continue to work during this time; this incudes the Speaker and the President Pro Tempore. Committee work is also not suspended during a break or recess.
The HOR is in Session just as the Senate. Our Legislative Session has not ended or we have not adjourned. However, the HOR is not having Pleanary Sitting owing to the leadership crisis centered around the removal of the Speaker; but they are in Session.
