Manama: Kuwait's parliamentary session was suspended on Tuesday after lawmakers refused to comply with a decision voted by the parliament.
The regular session could not start after 13 lawmakers put up black banners in front of them to protest against a decision by the parliament bureau to amend a complaint filed last year over the storming of the parliament.
In November, lawmakers led angry protesters calling for the government to step down into storming the parliament and putting further pressure on the prime minister to resign.
A case was filed by the bureau against the MPs involved in the unprecedented assault. However, the new bureau of the parliament elected in February said last week that the parliament had not been stormed and that the MPs and protesters simply walked in. The bureau said that the move did not entail any criminal offense and that it should be addressed from a political perspective.
However, other MPs, angered by the adjustment, said that the decision amounted to interference in judicial decisions and some of them expressed their displeasure by displaying the banners.
Their reaction prompted fellow lawmakers to call for a vote to take away the banners and allow the session to proceed.
The majority voted in favour of removing the banners, but the MPs refused to take them away, prompting Speaker Ahmad Al Saadoon to suspend the session until the MPs complied with the vote outcome.
An initial 30-minute suspension did not convince the MPs to do away with the banners, and eventually Deputy Speaker Khalid Al Soltan called off the session.
Following the decision, both sides said that they would not change their stances.
Kuwaitis elected a new parliament on February 2. However, several analysts said that the lack of harmony in its composition would cause it to be dissolved before the end of its four-year term.
