rewrite this content and keep HTML tags The Palestinian Legislative Council is the official name of the Palestinian parliament, which was formed after the 1993 Oslo Agreement, and this was preceded by attempts to establish a modern Palestinian legislative body, the first of which was during the British Mandate but it failed.
The first Palestinian Legislative Council was elected in 1996 in a public poll in which 16 parties participated, and the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat was opened, and Ahmed Qarai was chosen as head of the Council whose powers were determined in enacting laws and controlling the executive authority.
The internal dispute and fighting in Palestine -especially in the Gaza Strip -between the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah) and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in June 2007, and the subsequent Palestinian division to disrupt the work of the council.
Establishment and upbringing
The “Mandate Parliament” was established under the “Decree of the Constitution of Palestine” on August 10, 1922 issued by the British Occupation Authority, which stipulated the formation of a legislative council in Palestine and the election of part of its members, but the Palestinians boycotted him and the elections failed.
As for the modern Legislative Council, it is one of the institutions of the Palestinian National Authority, and it was established based on the declaration of principles and the Oslo agreement signed between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel in 1993.
The Council saw the light after holding the first legislative elections on January 20, 1996, and on the same day, presidential elections were held in which Arafat won.
The newborn council set the internal system of its work, and sets how its sessions and meetings and forming its committees.
According to this system, the council is sitting an annual parliamentary session that is divided into two periods, each of which is 4 months, the first begins in the first week of March, and the second in the first week of September.
A scene from the first session of the second Palestinian Legislative Council, which was elected in 2006 (Getty Emigz)
Structural and internal system
The council consists of 132 members who are chosen by free election from the West Bank Palestinians, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, and its duration is 4 years from the date of its election.
The council consists of a presidency consisting of the Speaker of the Council and his two deputies and a secretary who is elected from among the members of the Council in the first parliamentary session for a full year, in addition to committees organizing the activity of the members.
The council represents its chairman in all forums, and he is the one who opens the sessions and announces its end and runs discussions in it, while the first deputy takes over the chairmanship of the council in the absence of the president, and the second deputy shall assume the chairmanship of the council and his sessions in the event of the absence of the president and his first deputy, and in the absence of the president and his two deputies, the presidency of the council takes over the oldest member.
As for the Secretary, he was in the first legislative council to supervise all administrative affairs, and works to implement the council’s decisions, but with the amendment of its internal system in February 2006, most of the powers of the Secretariat moved to the General Secretariat of the Legislative Council.
The internal system approved 10 specialized permanent parliamentary committees that are considered the supervisory and legislative council tool, namely:
Jerusalem Committee.
The Land Committee and Resistance of Settlement.
Refugee Affairs Committee.
Political Committee.
Legal Committee.
Budget and Financial Affairs Committee.
Economic Committee.
The Education and Social Issues Committee.
Interior, Security and Local Government Committee.
The Committee for Control, Human Rights and Public Freedoms.
The internal system also gave the council the right to form temporary committees for specific goals, and established a central administrative institution in its temporary headquarters in Ramallah and Gaza, to assign the council and deputies in their main tasks, and to provide assistance in matters that fall within its powers.
The council’s system stipulated that its sessions will be held publicly and in the presence of the absolute majority, and that the decisions also be issued by an absolute majority.
The Council is called to a secret session in special cases at the request of the President of the Palestinian National Authority or the President of the Council or the request of a quarter of its members.
The provisions of the system may not be amended except on the basis of the president or a third of the number of members of the council.
Tasks and specializations
As for the tasks of the Palestinian Legislative Council, they are summarized in the following:
Legislation: It is represented in the enactment and amendment of the laws, and the President of the Palestinian Authority issues the laws after its approval by the Council within a period that does not exceed a month from the date of its referral to it, and he may return it to the council.
Control: Monitor the behavior of the executive authority and the extent of its commitment to constitutional rules.
Accounting: This includes the interrogation and review of members of the executive authority, and the right to raise recommendations to block confidence, whether for the government as a whole or some of the people in the government.
From the sessions of the Palestinian Legislative Council in Gaza in 2006 (Getty Emigz)
First Legislative Council
The first legislative council formed after the 1996 elections, with a participation rate of 79.9%, and it consisted of 88 members representing all Palestinian areas in the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip.
The elections were carried out under international sponsorship and under the supervision of more than two thousand observers representing 40 countries, 10 international organizations and 40 non -governmental organizations, in addition to local observers and a large number of journalists and media institutions.
16 parties and political movement participated in the elections, in addition to a number of independents, and the West Bank governorates won 51 seats and the governorates of the Gaza Strip on 37 seats.
On March 7, 1996, the late President Yasser Arafat opened the first session of the council, which was held by MP Ahmed Qarai (Abu Alaa) for 7 consecutive parliamentary sessions.
After the prime minister took over, MP Rafik Al -Natsheh was elected head of the Legislative Council on November 3, 2003, then he was succeeded by Rouhi Fattouh at the beginning of the ninth session and at the tenth on March 12, 2004.
The first council held 10 sessions between 1996 and 2006, which included 274 sessions, and more than a thousand decisions were issued, while its committees held more than 1935 meetings, a listening session and a field tour.
A scene from the process of sorting the votes of the Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 (Getty Emigz)
In the field of legislation, 220 laws were included in the agenda of the Council, 93 of which were approved, the head of the National Authority was approved on it, and it was published in the Official Gazette, the most prominent of which:
Basic Law (Power Constitution).
Civil Service Law.
Labor Law.
General Electoral Law.
Local council election law.
Budget regulation law.
The first council experience faced challenges, the most prominent of which is the complex Palestinian situation, which is the Palestinians seeking to establish a political entity on occupied soil.
The volume of challenges with the bank’s invasion increased after the outbreak of the Al -Aqsa Intifada in 2000, as it was not possible to hold its sessions and the meetings of its committees because the deputies were unable to reach its headquarters in the city of Ramallah, so he tried to overcome the problem by attending the deputies through the technology of television.
The mandate of the first council – which the Fatah movement dominated – ended with the elections of the second council, which won a majority of its seats.
The second legislative council
The second legislative elections were held on January 25, 2006 to choose 132 deputies in accordance with the general election law of 2005, a law that also passed a mixed electoral system equally in the number of council seats (50% according to the proportional system or the lists system that considers the Palestinian territories all one electoral constituency, and 50% according to the system of multiple unequal electoral districts).
The general elections law allocated 6 seats to Christians and guaranteed seats for women, so that she is one of the first three names and another woman in every 5 subsequent names, and so on.
The results of the elections showed the superiority of the Hamas movement’s change and reform list on the list of Fatah in the lists elections, while the difference in the circles was 28 seats in favor of the Change and Reform Bloc.
At the invitation of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the second council held its first session on February 18, 2006 at the presidential headquarters in the city of Ramallah in conjunction with Gaza.
Among the winning deputies were 7 prisoners in the occupation prisons: Marwan Al -Barghouthi, Jamal Hawel and Muhammad Abu Ali, all of them from the List of the Fatah movement, Muhammad Aladdin Al -Natsheh, Hassan Khalil and Azzam Salhab, who are from the Reform and Change Bloc, and Ahmed Saadat from the list of the martyr Abu Ali Mustafa, calculated on the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
After the capture of the Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, in the Gaza Strip on June 26, 2006, the occupation arrested 32 deputies from the Hamas movement in the West Bank, including the head of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Aziz Al -Dweik, which directly affected the council’s performance and holding its sessions.
The second legislative council held 27 parliamentary sessions, before entering into the disruption stage that started in the summer of 2007 after Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip, and the council did not play the supposed role – whether in terms of approving laws or government accountability – and issued only 62 decisions.
The second council dissolved
On December 12, 2018, the Supreme Constitutional Court decided to dissolve the Council and call for elections within a period not exceeding 6 months.
The summary of the court’s deliberations stated that “the Legislative Council is in a state of disruption, complete absence and lack of convening since the date of 7/7/2007, and its term has ended on 1/25/20 during the period of its disruption and absence, and it is still suspended and fully absent until now, and accordingly the supreme interest of the Palestinian people and the nation’s interest requires dissolving the Legislative Council on the elected Legislative on 1/25/2006, and considering it a decay since the date of this issuance. Decision.
The part related to the dissolution of the council was implemented without the incident related to the conduct of new elections, and despite the failure of the council’s sessions at its headquarters in Ramallah, the deputies of reform and change continued to hold their sessions at the council’s headquarters in Gaza and issue legislation and laws and implement them in the sector.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas shall issue legislation through presidential decrees that include “decisions by laws” based on Article (43) of the Basic Law (Constitution) that allows him in the event of “necessity” and the failure of the Legislative Council to issue decisions bearing the strength of the law, and experts have different opinions in the case.