HOW THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY VOTE LAWS

The proceedings of the National Assembly are governed by a law called The National Assembly Standing Orders 1994. Under that law, when a bill is presented to the National Assembly it is ﬁrst placed on the Order Paper by the Clerk of the Assembly. The order paper is just parliamentary speak for the agenda of the day. Before the Assembly deals with other matters, the Clerk reads out the titles of the various bills on the order paper which appears for the ﬁrst time. This is called the ﬁrst reading of the bill.

Once the Clerk has read the short title of the Bill for the ﬁrst time, the Speaker would order the Clerk to read it a second time, which causes the Bill to be recorded in the Record of Proceedings. Only after that procedure has been completed can the Bill be debated by members. However, debate cannot take place until seven days after the date of publication of the Bill, according to the law. Since all the bills for salary increases of the constitutional appointees were published in the Gazette on 20th December, this means that debate on the merit of the bill could not have taken place before 27th December.

Furthermore, under the Standing Orders of the National Assembly, if SNP had wanted to propose any amendment, such as reducing the amount of the increase or removing the unconstitutional pension provisions, they would have had to give 72 hours notice. Once the Bill had appeared on the Order Paper for a second reading, the Speaker would call on members to debate the merit or the principle of the bill. At this time members would not be allowed to table speciﬁc amendments of the clauses in the Bill, although an amendment worded in such a way as to urge the Assembly to reject the Bill entirely would have been permitted.

After debate on the merit or principle of the Bill had been exhausted, members would be asked by the Speaker to vote yes or no, to approve the second reading of the Bill. If the Bill is approved, the next procedure is to refer the bill to a committee, which could comprise all the members or only some members. Usually, if the order paper contains no other bills or motions for that day, the whole Assembly could constitute itself into a committee to discuss the text of the Bill which it had just approved on Second Reading. This procedure allows members to review the bill clause by clause and to vote on the various amendments that may have been proposed on the various clauses. After that the members would be asked to vote for or against each individual clause when the question is put to them by the chair person of the committee.

As soon as the Bill has passed the committee stage, the whole Assembly is then reconvened and a member or a Minister responsible for the bill makes a verbal report on the proceedings that had just terminated. At this time, new provisions could be introduced to the Bill. If that happens the Bill is then referred again through the committee stage before returning to the whole Assembly to be reported upon.

After that procedure has been exhausted, the member or Minister responsible for the bill refers the Bill for a third reading through a motion stating, “That the Bill shall be read a third time”. At this time no amendment is permitted except for corrections of typographical errors or oversights. Once the motion is voted on, the Clerk reads the title of the Bill which is now ready to become law. At any time at the beginning of each proceeding the Bill can be withdrawn by the person who had proposed it which could be either a member or a Minister.

The standing orders says that after the vote for the third reading, the Clerk shall cause ﬁve clean printing copies of the bill to be submitted to the president for Assent. It is interesting to note that, in Seychelles, no one has ever seen a bill with the original signature of the President. In America very often the President would sign a bill into law in front of the camera.

According to the ofﬁcial gazette, President Michel signed into law the increase in his salary, as well as that of Ramkalawan’s, on 31st December 2007, a feat that seems beyond the bounds of this government, since the bill was published only 10 days before, never mind when did they ﬁrst think of making those changes. It took the government 2 years to modify the IBC Act to change the fees for incorporation of a company. It now transpires that the whole exercise to vote the increased salaries had been a scam from the start. Although the date of the publications of the bills was 21st December, the budget book given to the members of the National Assembly on 14th December after the budget speech had already contained provisions of the increase as if the laws to authorise it had already been passed. But those laws were not even gazetted until 21st December. This is a conspiracy to defraud the people of Seychelles. This is the rule of law SPPF/SNP style.