Farmaajo’s JSC picks a nullity-Senate speaker
GOOBJOOG NEWS|MOGADISHU: The move by outgoing president Mohamed Farmaajo to appoint members to the Judicial Service Commission is legally void as it grossly violates the law, Senate speaker Abdi Hashi has said in yet another round of battles between the two leaders.
Following revelations that Farmaajo had appointed seven commissioners to the JSC, Hashi fired back poking holes into the outgoing leader’s move raising legal concerns including the absence of the Senate’s input in the process.
LEGAL TEST
According to Hashi, the nomination of the seven commissioners at the cabinet level failed the first legal test. Then cabinet headed by deputy prime minister Mahdi Guled did not have the power to conduct such business as it had already been dismissed by parliament and was only acting in trust. Its boss, Hassan Khaire has been shown the door by the Lower House when the nominations took place in July.
In effect, the cabinet, just like Khaire had been fired and held no legal mandate in undertaking consequential duties such as the nomination of JSC members.
Secondly, Hashi contends that the Senate did not approve the names forwarded by the Lower House tieing the president’s hands from picking the pen to appoint them. The appointment of commissioners to independent commissions of which JSC is one involves the approval of both the Lower and Upper Houses of Parliament.
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“[According to] Article 7 of the Law on the Establishment of the Judicial Service Council, members must first be proposed by a fully-fledged cabinet, and then submit it to both Houses of the Federal Parliament of Somalia for ratification on its own accord in accordance with the constitutional procedure of the Federal Parliament Somalia,” Hashi said.
Article 111 even goes further to include the input of the Federal Member States. “So, therefore, this presidential decree has no legal effect on its members appointed so that they can operate legally,” Hashi added while urging Farmaajo to ‘stop violating the Constitutional Provisions while establishing new Constitutional institutions in compliance with the Constitution and other laws of the country.’
The fresh battle over legislative processes comes barely a month after Farmaajo unilaterally signed a decree passed by the Lower House where he has immense control to allocate 13 seats to Banaadir region.
The resolution did not pass the Senate and contravened several sections of the law among them that which calls for a constitutional amendment to change the composition of the Federal Parliament.