MP Omar refutes the statement issued by the speaker of the parliament

The MPs discarding the declaration of the speaker of the parliament which says the impeachment motion against the president lacked any legal basis, are increasing rapidly.

Omar Ali, one of the MPs backing the motion against the president has faulted the remarks of the Speaker of the parliament and accused him of using authoritarian system where he (speaker) wants to dump the motion signed by over 90 MPs in dustbin.

He pointed out that the speaker does not have the constitutional mandate to declare on the legality of a motion of impeachment or the power to turn down the motion.

“The speaker issued statement to rubbish the impeachment motion against the president, we though he had some basic of law but he doesn’t. There is no constitutional mandate allowing to keep tabled motion for two consecutive months” he noted.

Omar also refuted the claims of the speaker that some of MPs behind the motion had backpedalled and dissociated themselves from the move.

“The idea that some of the MPS who previous undersigned the impeachment motion did reverse their decision is false,” he said.

He added “The MPs should read the Motion and have to understand it better before they sign it because they representing the Public therefore after that there would be no backtracking”

The comments emerged after the speaker of Somali federal parliament, Mohamed osman Jawaari said the concerns raised in the impeachment motion did not meet the minimum threshold as provided for under Article 84 of the Penal Code.

The move by the speaker is yet another development in the impeachment motion which has raised more questions that answers regarding the actual position and procedure of impeachment.

The Provisional Constitutional bestows authority to parliament to originate an impeachment motion against the president upon which the constitutional court will determine the legal merits before transmitting it to parliament for a vote should it find it in the affirmative.

However the absence of the court has technically left the motion in limbo which could partly explain why the speaker decided to determine its fate.

The speaker had earlier in the month asked parliament to deliberate on the best possible way out which would among others lead to the establishment of an ad hoc constitutional court.

Parliament has gone on recess until October 21, 2015 when the 7th session will start.