I was stunned by the speech of Bingu when he proposed the removal of either section 32 or 65 from our constitution.Iam a layman in the field of law and I need your contributions in view of this proposal from the head of the nation.Your input will educate me.
__________________
If Iam not for myself,who will be for me?And if Iam only for myself,what am I?
In short section 32 gives freedom to association while section 65 controls the extent of association.Section 65 can translate to crossing the floor in parliament.Can someone furnish.
__________________
If Iam not for myself,who will be for me?And if Iam only for myself,what am I?
In short section 32 gives freedom to association while section 65 controls the extent of association.Section 65 can translate to crossing the floor in parliament.Can someone furnish.
Pope,
This is what section 65 says;
65. -
The Speaker shall declare vacant the seat of any member of the National Assembly who was, at the time of his or her election, a member of one political party represented in the National Assembly, other than by that member alone but who has voluntarily ceased to be a member of that party and has joined another political party represented in the National Assembly.
Notwithstanding subsection (1), all members of all parties shall have the absolute right to exercise a free vote in any and all proceedings of the National Assembly, and a member shall not have his or her seat declared vacant solely on account of his or her voting in contradiction to the recommendations of a political party, represented in the National Assembly, of which he or she is a member.
Section 65 has since been amended(2001) to include all organisations that are political in nature but its true that section 65 is not compatible with section 32 which gives every person the right to associate but Bingus intentions for such a move are selfish and only intended to serve him and his party.The constitution used to have section 64 which gave powers to the constituents to recall their MP if they were not satisfied with his performance but Parliamentary act no 6 of 1995 removed this.The UDF was in the forefront of this move because having failed to win enough MPs,it embarked on a strategy to woo opposition MPs but such MPs especially the MCP ones faced the recall and UDF went around this problem by repealing this section.However section 65 was meant to protect the constituents who today votes in an MP because he belongs to AFORD and wake up tomorrow to find that the MP has joined MCP,meaning that the people who voted for him were cheated and the only remedy was to have such a seat declared vacant by the Speaker as the constituents had no more powers.
Now,we are back to 1995 where a party without the numbers in parliament wants to have a section of the constitution that is preventing it from poaching opposition MPs removed.Bingus DPP has officially got 6 MPs and about 11 other independents.It needs about 92 MPs for it to effectively control parliament,pass bills without any problems and according to rumours many MPs are willing to join DPP for financial gains of course but for this Section in the Constitution.So by calling for the section to be removed,Bingus main intention is to pave way for these MPs to join him and not a genuine attempt to rectify an anomaly in the constitution.
__________________
For have I now become your enemy for telling you the truth?-Galatians 4 v16.