Ramallah: The Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) is scheduled to hold its first session in a decade, after a quarter of the council demanded that an emergency session be held without delay, according to a senior Palestinian official.
Speaking to Gulf News, Dr Hassan Khuraishah, the second vice-president of the PLC, said that at least 16 members of the Fatah movement, as well as all Hamas lawmakers have demanded the emergency session.
“The session will address the issue of the latest decision by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to remove the immunity of five of the lawmakers in his Fatah movement,” Khuraishah said. “We will issue a resolution regarding the illegality and unconstitutionality of the move.”
In terms of Palestinian law, parliamentarians are granted diplomatic immunity from all arrest and prosecution. However, last November, the Palestinian Constitutional Court issued a ruling granting the Palestinian president the undisputed right to waive the immunity of lawmakers. A presidential decision to remove the immunity of parliamentarians Mohammad Dahlan, Shami Al Shami, Sasser Juma’a, Jamal Al Tirawi and Najat Abu Baker – all members of Abbas’s Fatah movement and the Fatah parliamentary block at the PLC – followed the ruling.
The five Palestinian lawmakers have been charged with the theft of public funds, arms trading and defamation.
The 132-member PLC has not been operational since the Islamist movement of Hamas won the parliamentary elections in 2006 and a year later violently took control of the Gaza coastal strip.
Basic Palestinian law and the rules which administer the PLC stipulate that the Palestinian parliament must convene a session if one-fourth of its members request such a session.
Khuraishah said that an official emergency session request was submitted to PLC vice-president Ahmad Bahar in Gaza.
“Bahar is coordinating the issue in the Gaza Strip, and I am in charge of dealing with it in the West Bank,” Khuraishah told Gulf News. “The session will be held via video conferencing, or if that technology is not available, lawmakers will meet by telephone,” he said.
Khuraishah says that to date there have been no objections to convening the session.
“It is true that nobody has the right to object to the PLC holding its first session in a decade, but we want this session to be amicable and not one that causes disputes and differences,” he said. “We have contacted Al Mukata’a [the presidential headquarters] to reassure them that the coming session is not meant to target anybody, but as yet, have not received a response to our calls.”
