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| National |
| Govt to officially cancel 3rd term bill |
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by
Joseph Langa, 02 April 2003
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Justice Minister and Attorney General Henry Phoya said on Monday the bill seeking to amend the country’s Constitution to extend presidential terms to three from the current two five-year terms will not proceed.
But Phoya was quick to deny that the decision to discontinue the bill followed President Bakili Muluzi’s Sunday evening address to the nation that announced Bingu wa Mutharika as his heir.
The Attorney Genral said the bill’s withdrawal was based on indications from the Parliamentary Legal Affairs committee to which it was referred after Parliament failed to pass it during the last emergency sitting.
“It is not to do with the announcement by the President. If you had asked me last week or two weeks ago I was still going to give you the same answer,” said Phoya, who said he will meet committee chair Abdalla Mdalla to make an official withdrawal.
In a separate interview, Speaker of the National Assembly Sam Mpasu said although the bill is not officially withdrawn, procedurally it is already removed because of the implications made by the President’s speech.
“From the implications of the statement the President has made the Third Term, Bill is now irrelevant. If you read the President’s statement then the bill is no longer an issue,” Mpasu said.
Phoya, on the other hand, could not be drawn to comment on why the bill was being withdrawn, saying he cannot say until he meets the committee chair.
The Attorney General tabled the third term bill in January this year, saying it was not meant for the incumbent President .
Phoya later referred the Legal aAffairs Committee for “fine-tuning”, a development that irked the opposition MPs who alleged that it was being withdrawn because the UDF knew that they would not get the two-thirds majority required to get it through.
In an interview, Mdalla said the Attorney General will have to officially withdraw the bill, but confirmed that he was expecting to meet him by Wednesday to look at the official withdrawal procedures.
Mdalla confirmed that he briefed the Attorney General on the possibility of withdrawing the bill because the committee noted that criticisms against it were heavy following consultations the committee carried out.
“Individually as members of the committee we gave each other a chance to consult other people before we meet. It appeared from those individual consultations that the criticisms were heavy.
“When I met the Attorney General I told him that the criticisms were to that extent,” he said.
Mdalla said the committee was supposed to meet before April 15 to brief each other on the findings of the individual consultations before voting on them to draw up the final resolution on the bill. He added that the committee was also aware that the bill would have failed to secure a two-thirds majority vote to pass.
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