Djibril War faults AU Executive Council decision on PAP

Immediate past Chairperson of the Pan African Parliament’s Permanent Committee on Rules, Privileges and Discipline, Hon. Djibril War (Senegal) has questioned the authority of the Executive Council of the African Union to interfere in what he described as “the internal affairs” of the Pan African Parliament (PAP).

In a statement to the African Parliamentary News, Hon. War posited that PAP is governed by its Rules of Procedure with respect to the election of the Bureau.

The statement was in reaction to the decision of the 39^th Ordinary Session of the Executive Council of the African Union that the next PAP Bureau election should be in line with the principle of rotation and that only regions that have not had the opportunity to lead the Parliament would be eligible to present candidates at the resumed election to be conducted and managed by the AU Office of Legal Counsel.

Reacting, Hon. Ward said: “In which parliament in the world have members of the executive been seen interfering in the internal affairs of parliament, let alone hearing them. What nerve! The Pan African Parliament is governed by Rules of Procedure which governs its rules of organization and operation. The election of the members of the Bureau and the commissions is provided for by the provisions of the Constitutive Act relating to the Pan African Parliament”.

He opined that the decisions of the Executive Council should have been ratified by the PAP plenary and incorporated in its rules of procedure before implementation and wondered how “a recommendation which is not even a legal act in the sense of its obligatory nature can prevail over the provisions in force in the Rules of Procedure of the Pan African Parliament? Are we being told about the custom or practice of international organizations?”

It would be recalled that the Executive Council had expressed concern over “the lack of decorum shown by parliamentarians and the physical or verbal violence that was shown during the deliberations which the Council rejects as the actions have damaged the image of the Union within the Continent and beyond” and had called on the “parliamentarians and the Secretariat to project the best images of the Union”.