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The opposition demands the cancellation of the vote on the five draft laws of the March 7 plenary session due to the lack of a quorum, an unprecedented precedent for which the Assembly says it will address the Secretariat for Procedures, Voting and Ethics.
In the plenary session of March 7, the deputy speaker of the Assembly, Ermonela Felaj, ignored the protest with banners and whistles of the opposition MPs and put five draft laws to the vote, including the controversial proposal to postpone the term of the law on Strategic Investments until December 31, 2024. .
Socialist MPs raised their green cards and within minutes, the laws were deemed approved. The voting process continued even after the opposition MPs reminded the leader of the session, Felaj, that she did not have the necessary quorum to continue with the voting process.
But the broadcast videos of the session show Felay insisting that the quorum was necessary both at the start of the session and during the voting process.
"In the conditions you create, I have no obligation to answer you, who come here to disrupt the session," Felaj is heard saying to the democratic deputies.
For a voting process to be considered valid, 70+1 deputies must participate, while in the session of March 7, 68 deputies voted for their presence in the voting process, a figure that is also confirmed in the divulged minutes published on the website of Assembly.
Twenty days later, the situation in the Assembly has changed and the opposition MPs have taken their seats after a pact reached with the majority for the establishment of parliamentary investigative commissions.
However, the legitimacy of the voting on March 7 has been returned for discussion in the Assembly, while the head of the parliamentary group of the Democratic Party, Gazmend Bardhi, has requested the cancellation of the voting and its repetition, the process was in violation of the Constitution and the regulation of the Assembly.
"For all five draft laws voted, the number of deputies who participated in the voting was lower than the minimum quorum required by article 78, point 1, of the Constitution of Albania, and article 55, point 2, of the Rules of the Assembly "- argues Bardhi in his request.
Bardhi claims in his letter to the Assembly that "the violation was committed with full intent", recalling that they had warned the vice-president Felaj about the lack of quorum.
During the revival of this claim in the last session of Thursday by Bardhi, Nikola answered that he was waiting for the position of the secretariat.
An official source in the administration of the Assembly told BIRN that the matter was being addressed by the Secretariat for Procedures, Voting and Ethics. According to the source, the Secretariat is expected to meet within the week to make a decision on whether to cancel the session and re-vote the draft laws approved in the March 7 session.
The Assembly is facing an unprecedented precedent, while the way participation in the voting process is verified is sanctioned in the Constitution, in the Assembly regulations and in at least two decisions of the Constitutional Court, which are cited in the request submitted by Bardhi.
"For the determination of the quorum and the majority of deputies, according to the provisions of point 3 of this article, the President of the Assembly refers only to the number of deputies who have voted," it is stated in point 4 of article 55 of the Rules of the Assembly.
Through this contested process, the Assembly approved 5 draft laws, among them the proposal to extend the effects of the "Strategic Investments" law until December 31, 2024, even though the law has been criticized by experts as having served to favor a group of oligarchs close to the government.
Other draft laws that were voted on in the March 7 session are the draft law "On water resources", the amendments to the law "On Tourism", the draft law on Protection of Competition as well as some amendments to the law "On education and professional training". / BIRN
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