Minister of Justice Mr Given Lubinda says he cannot withdraw Bill 10 of 2019 and incorporate the views of the select committee of parliament.
Speaking on ZNBC’s Sunday Interview hosted by Grevazio Zulu, the minister said he did something very unprecedented by proceeding with the Bill because some members of Parliament wanted him to withdraw it.
“This is unprecedented because we live in unprecedented times. We have parliamentarians who when you say this is your bill, come and debate it, they say ‘no we are not going to debate it because these people won’t move the amendments that they say they will move’,” Mr Lubinda said.
“I went to Parliament again; I did something very unprecedented. Ordinarily Mr Zulu, when a minister presents a Bill, that becomes the property of parliament. The Bill is referred to a committee, the committee comes back to parliament and presents that report of that committee after the minister presents the Bill for second reading. After the debate in the second reading, then the vote is called for second reading. It goes into committee stage. It is at committee stage where the minister says I listened to what they said in second reading. I am going to present these amendments in conformity with what they submitted.”
He said the reason he did was because the people who said were going to debate the Bill walked out of parliament and wanted the Bill withdrawn.
“They wanted the Bill withdrawn, get the committee report, and merge the two and present another Bill. That is totally wrong. I cannot withdraw a Bill and incorporate the views of the committee and present it in the same session, I can’t. And I am saying this with authority. It is not illegal to withdraw a Bill. We are not talking about withdrawing ordinarily. They are saying withdraw the Bill, get the views of the committee, put them together and bring back the Bill. I will not bring back Bill 10 of 2019 in that format, no. The law is very clear, standing orders are very clear Mr Zulu,” Mr Lubinda said.
He said there was consensus from the time the process started, adding that he accepted eight out of the 10 proposals by the committee.
“I accepted eight of their recommendations and we compromised on one and we objected on one. Now if we accepted eight, compromised on one and said no on one, surely, can somebody say we were not willing to build consensus? We listened to their 10 issues. Around the NDF, around the process, there was total consensus,” Mr Lubinda said.
He further said a bill could not be amended outside Parliament and that he did not break any procedure in the entire process of the Bill.