Parliament quorum count amendment unconstitutional, Top court rules

The recent amendment to the parliament rules of procedure which allows the impeachment of the President or Vice-President with less than the constitutionally mandated number of lawmakers in parliament is unconstitutional, the country's top ruled Thursday.

According to the constitution, two-thirds of the total votes of the parliament are required to remove the president or vice-president. The total strength of the current parliament is 87.

But several ruling PPM/PNC lawmakers resigned to take up senior positions in the government shortly after the presidential elections, with no time between the next parliamentary elections to hold by-elections to fill the vacant seats. 

The main opposition MDP, which has a full majority in parliament orchestrated an amendment to the parliament rules of procedure to count the number of sitting members in parliament at the time.

In the Attorney General led challenge, the Supreme Court's ruling delivered Thursday said the parliament cannot limit its strength which was in direct violation of the constitution. 

The apex court said the constitution has specified the quorum of the parliament with a specific purpose and each seat represents thousands of people, which cannot be discounted under any circumstance.

"However, since the articles in question have now been annulled, there nothing more this court can do," the ruling delivered by the five judge bench said. 

After the Supreme Court tabled the first hearing of the case on February 25, the parliamentary general purposes committee during a sit-down last Thursday annulled the contested amendments. 

The committee instead, added an article parliament rules of procedure which now states that the total strength of the parliament would ignore vacant seats if there is no time to hold a by-election to elect a member to the seat.