The ACHRS recently published a review of the Second Ordinary Session of the 15th Jordanian House of Representatives, which took place from November 5 2009 to February 5 2009. The report was published in Arabic to our Parliamentary Observer website (www.parobserver.org) and also appears on JordanDays Web TV, a local website and video channel dedicated to "promoting democratic awareness" in Jordan. You can view the report, titled بعد عام ونصف على اطلاق موقع "المراقب البرلماني" مركز عمان يصدر تقريره الثالث حول عمل مجلس النوابat the following link: http://jordandays.com/ArticleDetails.aspx?Aid=383. Third Reporton Watching the Work of the 2nd Ordinary Session of the 15th Jordanian House of Representatives(5 November 2008 – 5 February 2009) The Amman Center for Human Rights Studies [ACHRS] has issued its third report of the series of its reports on watching the performance of the Jordanian House of Representatives. The report included the follow-up of the supervisory and legislative performance of the representatives during the Second ordinary Session from 5 November 2008 until 5 February 2009. The report also discussed the opening of the second ordinary session, the process of nomination for the post of speaker of the House of Representatives, the election of the members of its Permanent Bureau, and the election of the members of its committees and rapporteurs. The report reviewed the supervisory and legislative performance of the representatives during the meetings of the second ordinary session of parliament. The report of the financial and economic committee on the general budget of the state for the fiscal year 2009 was attached as an appendix to the third report.The report also tackled the sessions which discussed the general budget and the approval of the 2009 draft general budget in addition to the problem of the absence of quorum in some sessions of the House during the meetings of its second session. The report included a number of resolutions and recommendations aimed at boosting the transparency of the work of the `House of Representatives which would positively affect the work and effectiveness of the House and strengthen and guarantee the rights of the voters to get acquainted with the performance of the deputy which they have elected on the supervisory and legislative levels. CONCLUSIONS The report concluded that the supervisory role of the second session of the 15th parliament retreated compared to the first session. During the second session of the House of Representatives, the House members tabled 104 questions to the government and received answers from the government for 74 questions. It is noteworthy that during the first session of the House of Representatives, the House members tabled 249 questions to the government and the government replied to 190 questions. The legislative role of the second session of the House of Representatives retreated compared to its first session. The representatives completed in their second session 23 draft laws and provisional laws while the first ordinary session completed 40 temporary laws and one draft law. Media interest in the discussion of the general budget for 2009 declined because there was no specific systematic approach to the discussion of the budget taking into consideration the rights of citizens as part of the priorities of the budget. It was also noticed that there was a poor participation by the members of the House of Representatives in the meetings of the House. The lack of attendance of the members of the House and their absenteeism from attending several House session without any excuse has created a sharp controversy among the members of the House and in the circles of those following up the parliamentary activities of the second ordinary session of the 15th parliament. This has prompted some to ask about the extent of the constitutionality of the convening of some of these sessions which were clearly characterized with the absence of members and lack of quorum for holding the sessions. Recommendations The recommendations included the need to strengthen the transparency of the work of the House of Representatives which would reflect positively on the work and effectiveness of the House, and this in turn requires the guarantee of the right of the voters to know the role which each parliament member is performing on the supervisory and legislative levels and the extent of his regular attendance of the House sessions. The strengthening of transparency also requires the need to activate the supervisory role of the members of the Jordanian House of Representatives, i.e. the House Presidium should publish a list of the names of the members of parliament, the number of questions tabled, and the House Presidium should publish a list specifying the number of the draft law which each House committee submitted and who are the members of these committees. Moreover, a summary should be published indicating the participation of each member in the discussion of the draft laws in order to allow the public to know who are the active members in legislation. The House Presidium should further publish a table indicating the number of the sessions attended by each member, the number of sessions which he did not attend, and the number of draft laws on which each member voted for. The lists should be published on a top-to-bottom basis starting from the large number to the lesser number indicating the extent of effectiveness of each House member in voting on the draft laws and the discussion of these laws. Moreover, Jordanian jurist organizations and the circles of research and studies in the House of Representatives should prepare analytical studies for the budgets which the House of Representatives approves to explain the priorities which the State budgets designates and whether human rights are taken into consideration when the State budget is draft or discussed. Moreover, an official television station and an official radio station should be established to transmit live the proceedings of the sessions of the House of Representatives so as to allow the public to get acquainted with the proceedings of the sessions and to evaluate the participation of the House members in the House discussions. It should be recalled that the ACHRS earlier issued two reports on the watching of the performance of the Jordanian House of Representatives in its two previous sessions. The first report dealt with watching the performance of the House of Representatives in its first ordinary session held from 2 December 2007 until 30 March 2008 while the second report was devoted to watching the work of the House’s first extraordinary session held on 1 June until 12 July 2008. The ACHRS launched the site of the Parliamentary Observer at www.parobserver.org in November 2007 to disseminate the news of the House of Representatives, the developments involving it and the statements it publishes.
