EALA TO AMEND RULES WITH EXPANDED EAC

 EALA TO AMEND RULES WITH EXPANDED EAC

BY GRACE MACHA IN ARUSHA

The East African Legislative Assembly (Eala) intends to review its Rules of Procedure.

The review has been necessitated by the expanded  East African Community (EAC) which currently has eight member states.

The admission of more countries in the bloc means the expanded mandate of the EAC and by extension Eala.

The review process, being spearheaded by Eala's Committee on Legal, Rules and Privileges, may see increased Standing Committees, among others.

A report of the Committee said  the current Rules used by the Assembly have been overtaken by events and no longer workable.

Ideally, the Eala Rules of Procedure dictates swift implementations in line with the number of the partner states in the bloc, among others.

The first edition of Eala's Rules of Procedure was adopted by the first Assembly in 2001, the time it was constituted when EAC had three member states; Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya.

The 2001 editions were amended in 2008 following the admission of Burundi and Rwanda to the EAC the previous year.

In 2015, the 3rd Assembly adopted the 2015 edition of the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly which is currently applying. 

With the admission of South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2016 and 2022 respectively, the Assembly needs new Rules. 

"The rules have also to be reviewed due to the expanded mandate of the EAC and Eala", a report obtained by this blog said.

While considering the proposed amendments, the Committee reviewed various instruments, including the EAC Treaty.

It also considered various laws of the Community and rules of other jurisdictions the Parliaments of Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya.

Others are the rules of the Pan African Parliament (PAP) and the Parliamentary Forum of Southern Africa Development Community (Sadc).

Eala has already constituted a technical team to undertake a comprehensive review of its Rules of Procedure.

The team has been tasked to take into account the gaps, inconsistencies and experience of the Assembly and best practices from national and regional assemblies.

It has been agreed that the (new) Rules of Procedure for Eala be adopted at the beginning of the Assembly in order to guide the proceedings. 

The Committee found out that some of the Rules currently used by Eala were borrowed from the national assemblies of the partner states.

This was found out to be wrong  because Eala being a regional Assembly "cannot be directly compared to a National Assembly".

There is, therefore, a need to develop parliamentary traditions and practices of the Assembly "with regional character which are customized to the traditions of the EAC".

Another anomaly found was that the current committees of Eala were established in the First Assembly in 2001 when the House had only 27 members from three partner states.

Currently, the Assembly has a total of 63 members from seven member countries and is set to increase to 72 following the recent admission of Somalia into the bloc.