Consequences of Quorum Lack in Parliament: 55 Bills Remain Unvoted

The Kosovo Assembly during this legislature is constantly facing problems with ensuring the quorum needed for legislation vote.

MPs have rarely gathered all at a plenary session. Over 44 plenary sessions have been held since September 2017. So this year it hasn't been able to complete the initial sessions, thus being held for 2019. MPs have fulfilled 42% legislative agenda, which remains another 55 laws to proceed.

For September 10, 2017, December 18, 2018, 44 plenary sessions have been held. The plenary hearings are held on issues that are prosecuted for review by the Government, parliamentary commissions, as well as motions proposed by at least 6 deputies of the Parliament”, has told Indexline, Kosovo Assembly Secretary Ismet Krasniqi.

While Agnes Hadziut from KDI has declared that Kosovo's Assembly during 2018 has failed to function properly and that it has consistently faced various problems, mainly of political nature.

During two working sessions, the Assembly is constantly facing problems providing the necessary quorum for law voting. In addition to the lack of quorum, during this period disagreements between the opposition and the ruling parties have deepened more due to the Kosovo dialogue issue ʹ Serbia for which even part of the opposition has boycotted plenary work”, Haxhiu has said.

Unlike her, it has become a practice that no session that starts not to end that same day, and currently the Parliament has broken out sessions since September.

“The setting up of new sessions without completing what they started is causing chaos in the management of jobs and unable to meet this year's Parliament agenda. At this pace of work, beyond the ability to complete unfinished sessions this year, they will be transported for 2019. The head of the Assembly would have to return the earlier practice, as the work regulation stipulates, so that sessions would not be called on the days before parliamentary commission meetings would be held, for in this way it is hindering the performance of work on the” commissions, Haxhiu added.

Haxhiu has also added that he takes into account the large number of bills the Government has brought to the Assembly for review this year, their adoption has been difficult to convey due to the lack of quorum in the vote.

But despite procrastinating laws and lack of quorum to vote on, the Parliament has so far managed to meet a 42% legislative agenda. But there are 55 other laws in the procedure by the end of this year, which will be impossible for all of these to be completed by the end of this month. So we're going to have to retake bills from one year to the next, as has almost every year”, said Haxhiu from KDI.

It has also been stressed that the Assembly has been mired in its role of oversight.

“Even though MPs have been more active in presenting parliamentary questions and initiating interventions have lacked activities to monitor law enforcement. The Assembly has managed to complete and adopt the single law enforcement monitoring report for this year, although with the work plan for 2018, 18 laws have been in store for monitoring, not including other laws that, in the meantime, have added to their work plans for monitoring”, Haxhiu said.

Otherwise, there is no published report yet regarding the cost of the Parliament during 2018.

So far, only the spending report has been made during the first month of this year.

A total of 4,432,890.68 euros out of the total 11,440,533.89 euros were spent on this category for 2018, according to the same report. /Indesksonline/