N/Assembly presiding officers can sponsor bills – Rep Orker-Jev
As the custodian of the rules of the House, Nigerians would want to know, what is a bill?
Lawmaking is done by the presentation of bills. That is the only way you can make laws. You present a bill to correct something or make a legal framework. You bring a bill to amend an existing law. When it comes to our standing orders, we highlight the procedure of turning a bill into a law. So, bills are the means through which the legislature makes laws.
We have the first reading of a bill, which is just the presentation and mentioning of the long title of the bill, after which it comes to second reading, where the merits and the demerits of the bill are highlighted, that is the debate. After the debate, if the members allow it to be read for the second time, it is then given to a standing committee of the House, which will go and take a look at it and even organize a public hearing for members of the public to make inputs. Depending on the subject matter, relevant stakeholders will be invited to come and make their inputs.
The committee will then put together a report of its activities, including the public hearing. The report comes before the House and it goes into what we call the Committee of the Whole, presided by the deputy speaker based on our rules. After consideration of the report, it goes for third reading, which essentially is the passage of the bill. When a bill is read for third time, it is deemed to have been passed. That is how a bill transmits into a law.
Where does this leave the Senate?
The House of Reps alone cannot conclusively pass a bill into law. It has to be concurred by the Senate. If it’s a bill passed by the Senate, it comes to us, we look at it and concur or disagree as the case may be. It is only when the two Houses agree on a bill that it becomes law and sent to the president for signature. It is when it is signed by the president that it effectively becomes law. But if the president withholds his assent and the National Assembly does nothing about it, then it is thrown out, but if it is sent to the president and he does nothing about it, the constitution allows us, after a certain length of time, to overrule the president’s veto and the bill becomes law. Basically, that is how a bill starts and ends.
The House recently marked one year since inauguration, and your committee turned
Rep Emmanuel Yisa Orker-Jev, representing Buruku Federal Constituency of Benue State, is the chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Rules and Business. In this interview, he speaks on the process of passing a bill and says all elected members of the National Assembly can sponsor a bill irrespective of their position. Excerpts:
out many bills and motions, how did that come about?
Let me say that we have members of the 8th House largely made up of young and ambitious people who want to make an impact. So, we had bills coming in almost everyday. The bills have covered virtually every part of our national life: from economy, culture to every aspect.
But we had something. When the speaker was inaugurated, he came up with a legislative agenda for the 8th House. It was debated by the entire House and adopted as resolutions of the House. A clause in the legislative agenda talks about reformation of all laws. So, what the speaker did was that he set up a panel of lawyers from outside the National Assembly and a few within to help him look at all the laws and identify those that are obsolete and no longer in tandem with modern realities.
All such laws were identified. In the first instance, we had 130 of such bills that were turned in by the committee and the speaker directed that such laws be distributed to members. On December 10, the 130 bills were read for the first time on the floor. That alone took the figure up. In the entire life of the 7th Assembly, for instance, we had slightly over 600 bills that were gazetted. But now, in our first year alone, we have about 685 of such laws that were gazetted. Earlier this month, 100 bills were presented on a single day, out of which 36 came from that committee that I mentioned earlier.
Who and who can sponsor a bill? Is there any restriction for one to sponsor a bill?
There is no restriction. All you need to do is to look at the need where you think a legal framework is needed, and you bring a bill. When you have an idea for a bill, you write to the speaker and apply that you want to introduce that bill. The speaker will sign and minute it to the chairman rules and business to take a look at it. The chairman rules and business needs to go through it, and it’s minuted to the office that gazettes bills. When it is gazetted, it comes back to rules and business and it will be slated for first reading.
Any member can bring a bill. Bills brought by members are called private-member bills. The executive too can bring a bill. The presidency or any of its agencies can bring a bill. An agency can bring a bill through the presidency. So, any member can bring a bill.
What about presiding officers? Are they exempted?
No, remember that the Northeast Development Commission bill was sponsored by the speaker together with about 86 or so members. The speaker can come down and sponsor a bill if he likes. He has sponsored a motion, and presently the Speaker Yakubu Dogara has five bills, one has already been passed into law. So, no member is exempted. The deputy speaker too has a bill on constitutional amendment, and virtually all the principal officers have bills. I know because I process them.
A member of the public too can initiate a bill. It’s just that it cannot be introduced on the floor with his name; he has to come through a member.
Considering this long process, how did the House come about passing 85 bills into law within one year?
It’s not impossible. It is a matter of determination. The fact of the matter is that some of these bills do not necessarily require public hearing, because there are some bills that come from laws that were passed into law in the 1950s or 1960s that pegged a fine at N50 or you go to prison for 10 years. If you still have that law in our statute books, it is ridiculous. Nobody will have a second thought about committing an offence. Somebody will say that after all, is it not N50? Anybody can pay N50. But if you bring N50 to be commensurate with the economic realities of the time, for instance, you say pay N50,000 or go to jail for five years, people will be careful because it’s not easy to raise N50,000. There are several of such bills. Because they didn’t require public hearings, they didn’t take long time to be passed.
Besides, we passed through all the stages through which a bill is passed. It’s not as if there was short-circuit or anything. It’s not surprising.
It is said that resolutions of any of the chambers of the National Assembly are mere advice to the executive, what is the House doing in this regard?
There is an ongoing debate in this country about whether resolutions reached as a result of motions are binding. Since there is no particular law that says resolutions of the National Assembly are binding, it is still a debate. Some, including a court of law, opined that if both Houses of the National Assembly agree on a matter, that is if one passes a resolution and the other concurs, it takes the toga of a law.
The problem with that is that laws are not supposed to address specific situations. If that is the case, you’ll have a body of law that will become impossible use. For instance, both Houses of the National Assembly concurred on the issue of Kogi State House of Assembly. It was introduced first in the House of Reps and the Senate concurred, that is concerning the taking over of the state assembly due to the crisis there. That resolution was initially obeyed by the Inspector-General of Police, because he was directed to seal the assembly and he did.
Unfortunately, soon after that, the attorney-general was said to have advised that we didn’t have such powers, therefore it should be unsealed, and the crisis continued. We felt that was a wrong reading of the law, because in this particular case, it is a constitutional matter.
Even if you say the resolution of the House is only persuasive in nature, in this case, Section 11 (4) of the constitution, particularly gives the National Assembly the powers to take over. What it doesn’t do is that it doesn’t give the modus through which you can take over. Since you cannot do it through a bill, you cannot bring a bill to take care of just one particular incident. A law is supposed to take care of generic situation so that even if tomorrow another situation comes, it will apply to it. You don’t bring a bill or a law to take care of just particular event, and after that even the law goes into the dustbin.
Unfortunately, the attorneygeneral advised otherwise, and that ruling kind of brought the executive on a collision course with the National Assembly. We’re waiting for a definite court pronouncement in the future.
But that is not to say that in the past, all our resolutions were disobeyed. In fact, a sizable number of our resolutions were complied with. We had a situation in this country when a resolution of the National Assembly installed an acting president through the Doctrine of Necessity. If you recall when [former president Umaru] Yar’Adua was sick and the debate was on whether Goodluck Jonathan should be acting president, it was the resolution of the National Assembly that installed him. So, we should learn to respect the resolutions of the National Assembly.
What do we expect from the House in the next session?
It is the continuation of the same drive. Bills and motions are still coming in droves. The passion hasn’t died down, and the tempo hasn’t slackened. Nigerians should expect that the House will continue in the same drive. Before, we used to be accused of underperformance, now it looks like we’re being accused of over-performance, that means somebody has taken notice of the fact that we’re doing our job the way it should be done.