Tiraspol, 16 March. /Novosti Pridnestrovya/. During today's plenary session lawmakers considered a draft law «On representative bodies of power and local government».
As the document's preamble specifies, this law stipulates common principles of the implementation of popular representation in the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic by forming republican representative bodies and local representative bodies, enabling them to function and cooperate within the integrated system of republican and local representative bodies.
According to the bill's author, Oleg Vasilaty, time is ripe to adjust the integrated system of representative bodies of power, articulate a conceptual framework, common principles of formation and functioning.
All lawmakers agree with these arguments. However, attempts to eliminate the existing gaps in the legislation will reform, in fact, the foundations of local government. In particular, the main novelty is the assertion of the Supreme Council's control over local councils. It is indicative that this reform is being carried out as the parliament has overruled the decision of Slobodzeya local councillors to recall their representative to Pridnestrovie's Central Election Commission.
«Law violations are under the jurisdiction of the court. Only the court can overrule decisions. The court determines if the law is violated and delivers judgement. No one else can determine that the law has been violated. We have the separation of powers," said Andrey Sipchenko in the course of debate.
This initiative received a negative response from the president.
«The integrity of representative bodies, according to the bill's author, must lie in the assertion of the Supreme Council's control over inferior representative bodies, thus ensuring the integrity of representative bodies of state power through the priority of one of power branches and limiting the established constitutional safeguards of local government independence," reads the president's official conclusion.
«The president thinks that the establishment of administrative accountability of local government bodies to a state power body, and namely the Supreme Council, is not possible," said the minister of justice, Olga Zvarych.
The Russian Federation where local government bodies are not part of the system of state government bodies was cited as an example. In this regard, the minister proposed to send the draft law back for refinements and discuss it with the country's public organisations ahead of its consideration. However, her proposal received extraordinary response from lawmakers.
«Today, the Public Chamber's activities are not regulated by the law, which is yet to be approved. It functions following the president's decree. A question arises in this respect if we can trust that all decisions made not only by the Public Chamber but also by any other body that was formed based on some executive act will be unbiased," said MP Andrey Safonov.
Finally, the draft law was approved on first reading.
