Presidential Palace welcomes confirmation of president’s decree by Senate

Afghanistan Presidential Palace has welcomed the confirmation of President Ghani’s decree on electoral reforms by the Senate House.

The presidential citadel says that the confirmation of this decree means respect to people’s demands for brining reforms in the electoral system.

“We welcome the action of Senate House, and this would be a respect to peoples’ demands on holding the election and electoral reforms,” said Zafar Hashemi, president’s deputy spokesman.

The Mesharano Jirga — or upper house of the parliament — on Tuesday approved by a majority vote President Ashraf Ghani’s legislative decree on election commissions’ restructuring.

Earlier, the Wolesi Jirga — lower house — had rejected the decree. Bringing reforms to the country’s electoral system was the basic point of the agreement on formation of the unity government and a key promise held out to the people.

Article 100 of the constitution says: “In case the decision of one house is rejected by another house, a combined committee composed of equal members of each house is formed to resolve the disagreement. The decision of the committee is enforced after its approval by the president.

In case the combined committee cannot solve the disagreement, the defeated resolution is considered void.

And, if the resolution is approved by the Wolesi Jirga, it can be approved in the next session of the Wolesi Jirga by the majority of its members.

 This approval is assumed as enforceable, after it is signed by the President, without submission to the Meshrano Jirga.

If the disagreement between the two houses is over legislation involving financial affairs, and the joint committee is not able to resolve it, the Wolesi Jirga can approve the draft by the majority vote of its members.

This draft is assumed as enforceable without submission to the Meshrano Jirga after it is signed by the President

In the meantime, the lower house of parliament has also said that there is the possibility that the president’s decree will also be confirmed by the joint commissions of the houses National Assembly.

Parliament deputy speaker noted that a joint commission will be created that consist of senators and parliament members and will begin works after the votes of the commission.

“We hope that this commission will have a result and we will create the commission after the written submitted to the Senate House,” said Erfanullah Erfan, deputy speaker of parliament.