The National Assembly’s House Committee will not respond to the Speaker’s concerns regarding its decision to dissolve the committee, the committee chairman Karma Tenzin said.

However, the committee has been complying with the Speaker’s pronouncement that the committee should be given continuity until the dissolution of the Assembly itself.

Following a letter from Speaker Jigme Zangpo, the members on July 21 decided to reinstate the committee. The decision to dissolve the committee “temporarily” was made in its 71st meeting held on July 14.

The Speaker in response to the committee’s decision had written to the committee members that they had violated the National Assembly Act and the Rules of Procedure by dissolving the committee.

MP Karma Tenzin, said the committee need not respond to the Speaker’s letter in writing. “But we are complying with the Speaker’s letter,” he said.

The members have until August 10 to resign if they wish to do so. If some members resign, Karma Tenzin said that they would be replaced by new members.

However, he said that the committee would take time to induct new members since most of the members will be on their constituency visits.

Karma Tenzin claimed that the committee was not actually dissolved. “The use of the word dissolved was actually not accurate,” he said, adding that he was aware that the committee cannot be dissolved.

The 71st meeting had decided that “the current members would resign”. The meeting also decided that until new members were selected, the committee would “temporarily be dissolved”.

However, one of the following meetings acknowledged that it was in violation of law to dissolve the committee. The minutes of the meeting followed the 71st meeting will be submitted to the Speaker.

The committee members said that in the 71st meeting they did not want to sit in the committee saying that the secretariat had failed to support or assist the committee.

The committee also looks into the problems and welfare of Assembly members and considers all issues raised by the non-committee members.

The house committee considers all training, seminars, conferences, study tours and other human resource related matters of the members of the Assembly.

Unlike other committees, the house committee deals with all matters related to Assembly members. It represents all members of the Assembly and reports their administration problems to the Secretariat.

MB Subba

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