The Bhutanese Leading the way.
This summer session of Parliament that begins from May 7th 2015 will see the upper house discussing three legislative issues, 3 protocol ratifications, four policy issues and one report.
The National Council (NC) will see the introduction of three bills which are Entitlement and Service Condi¬tions Act for the Holders, Members and Commissioners of the Constitu¬tional Offices of Bhutan (Amendment) Bill 2014, Election (Amendment) Bill 2014 and Budget and Appropriation Bill 2015-16.
In the National Assembly’s fourth session of the second parliament, the Entitlement and Service Conditions Act for the Holders, Members and
Commissioners of the Constitutional Offices of Bhutan (Amendment) Bill 2014 was introduced to address the is-sue of those who complete their Con-stitutional tenure before the normal age of retirement.
National Assembly members ex-pressed and supported for the amend¬ment of the act because as per the act, those who are experienced and quali¬fied were deprived the opportunity to serve the nation, as they have to retire before the normal age of retirement.
Thereby, the House amended sec¬tion 2 that read as “A person appoint¬ed as the Holder of a Constitutional Office shall resign from his or her pre¬vious office with post service benefits”.
This amendment provides that members and commissioners of the constitutional offices do not have to
resign from their previous service un¬like as per the existing Act. The House passed the bill after 24 Members voted ‘Yes’ and 15 members voted ‘No’ of the 39 members.
National Assembly (NA) also dis¬cussed on whether or not to amend Election Act 2008. The house find¬ing no strong grounds to amend the Act resolved not to amend it after 27 members voted ‘No’ and 13 members voted ‘Yes’.
The council will also discuss the ratification of Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN¬FCCC), Statute of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and Protocol for Ratification of Inter-national Conventions and Treaties.
In addition, there will be delibera
tion and adoption of Tourism Policy and Programs, Employment Policies, Programs and Strategies and Hydro-power Policies and Programs.
The Annual Anti-Corruption Re-port 2014 will also come on the floor. The house will have a joint sitting on the disputed bills. The NC will also discuss on the status updates on the resolution of the 14th session.
NC will also discuss on issues from Dzongkhag Tshogdus. There will also be deliberation on the rationalization of the gewogs.
At the end of the session, there will be discussion on the Annual Report by the Prime Minister on the State of the Nation, including legislative plans, annual plans and priorities of the Gov¬ernment. The session will end on June 8th 2015.
