By Ahmed Elumami.
Tripoli, 25 March 2014:
The General National Congress has instructed the 47 members of the 60-member Constitutional Assembly . . .[restrict]elected on 20 February to meet for the first time in Beida next month. Until today’s decision, it was widely believed that the assembly could not legally start its work without the full 60 members.
“Seventy-six Congress members out of 85 voted in today’s session to allow the 47 members of the Constitutional Assembly to meet on 14 April in Beida,” Zawia Congresswoman Naima Al-Hami, told the Libya Herald.
She said that there would be a opening ceremony in Beida which would included members of Congress and the government at which the assembly was declared open and in session. There would then be a first first meeting chaired by the oldest member. The second session, however, would not take place until after the other 13 members were present.
On Sunday, Congress ordered High National Election Commission to organise fresh elections for the 13 seats, declared unfilled after polls on 20 February and then a failed reattempt on 26 February.
Although anything relating to the Constitutional Assembly is widely viewed as a constitutional matter and therefore in need a 120 votes in favour, Benghazi Congressman Sulaiman Zubi told this paper that this was not so in this case. There was now nothing preventing the 47 members of the Assembly from meeting as the normal quorum had been reached authorising it to do so. [/restrict]
