Lawmakers convened for the extraordinary session on July 14, with some 33 bills on their agenda.

Deliberations during the 16-day session covered several bills and temporary laws, and most prominently, the government's policy statement which 66 deputies voted in favour of after four days of fiery debate.

Also during the “short” session, legislators embarked on discussing the anti-corruption commission draft law presented to them with urgency status. MPs decided to refer the bill to the House Legal Committee for discussions and the introduction of key amendments with the help of legal and judicial experts.

According to Article 82 of the Constitution, “The King may whenever necessary summon the National Assembly to meet in an extraordinary session for an unspecified period... An extraordinary session shall be prorogued by a Royal Decree.”

Deputy House Speaker Mamdouh Abbadi said the House would convene for the ordinary session on Dec. 1.

Deputies probe

Socio-Economic Transformation Plan

The majority of deputies present at Sunday's meeting decided to form a committee representing all of the House blocs to look into how proceeds of the Socio-economic Transformation Plan (SETP) were spent between 2001 and 2004.

“Hundreds of millions were spent in a suspicious way,” charged Deputy Abdullah Zreiqat (Karak, First District) who voted for the formation of the committee.

However, Deputy Hashem Qeisi (Amman, Sixth District) demanded that the government present to the House a report detailing the spending of the proceeds of the privatisation programme. He also called for presenting a budget for the programme separate from the state budget.

In his response, Prime Minister Adnan Badran said his government welcomes any investigation and is willing to provide all essential data.

“There are documents that clarify how every dinar of the proceeds was spent,” said the premier.

He added that JD476 million of the privatisation proceeds were employed to pay off some of the country's debt and to debt service. He said the contribution of the privatisation programme to the SETP, JD40 million, went mainly to fund development projects.

Badran said he would provide MPs with charts detailing the amounts spent.

Meanwhile, Deputy Raed Hijazin (Karak, Second District), who suggested the formation of the investigation committee, said around JD480 million were spent under the umbrella of the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation's (MoPIC) SETP, stressing that in spite of the large amount, citizens have not witnessed any tangible changes to their living standards.

Hijazin told The Jordan Times that some JD30 million were spent in Karak Governorate, but neither he nor the residents there noticed any transformation.

The SETP was launched in November 2001 upon Royal directives with the goal of accelerating the pace of social and economic reforms and raising the quality of Jordanians' living standards.

In light of the limited financing capabilities of the state budget, the government sought to fund the SETP via additional grants and a partial utilisation of the privatisation proceeds through temporary law No. 2 for the fiscal year 2002, according to the MoPIC.

The deputies approved the temporary law yesterday as referred by the Senate.

US bilateral immunity agreement

Also yesterday, the Senate approved the bilateral impunity agreement between the Kingdom and the US, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The bill, signed late last year, commits the Kingdom not to extradite any US citizen for trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC). It was voted down by an overwhelming majority of MPs in mid-July on the basis that “it jeopardises the Kingdom's sovereignty over its national soil.”

The deputies accused the US of exercising double standards, as it seeks to exempt its citizens from prosecution at the international tribunal, but demands other states to hand over their nationals to tribunals probing war crimes cases.

In its meeting on Thursday, the Senate Legal Committee approved the bill on grounds that the agreement “serves Jordan's higher interests” and does not contradict the country's commitment to the ICC convention, known as the Rome Statute, which Jordan was the first Arab country to ratify. Petra reported that the committee also discussed the legal, political, financial, economic and military implications of the agreement.

The Rome Statute, whose ratification by Jordan is still pending parliamentary approval, defines cases under which a signatory to the statute is exempted from obligations therein.

Its Article 98 states that “the court may not proceed with a request for surrender or assistance which would require the requested state to act inconsistently with its obligations under international law with respect to the state or diplomatic immunity of a person or property of a third state, unless the court can first obtain the cooperation of that third state for the waiver of the immunity.”

Based on that, US representatives around the world sought bilateral agreements with countries so as to ensure such immunity for its citizens.

The US Congress threatened early last year that the ICC country members might lose millions of dollars in US assistance if they did not sign bilateral immunity agreements.

Bloc accuses gov't of misleading House

Meanwhile, the 11-member Democratic Alliance Bloc accused the government of “misleading the Lower House,” by failing to explain to the legislators the need for endorsing the agreement and the ramifications of rejecting it, particularly with regards to the US aid to the Kingdom.

In their statement, the MPs said the government should have explained reasons for having the bill.

The draft is to be referred to the House for a second vote. If it insists on its position rejecting it, both the Senate and the Lower House should then have to hold a joint meeting in which the acceptance of the draft should be approved by a two-thirds majority of the members of both Houses present. If rejected, the draft is not to be placed again before the House during the same session, as stipulated in article 92 of the Constitution.