The amendment made by the House of Representatives (HoR) to the referendum law is “unconstitutional” and violates the political agreement, head of the High Council of State (HCS) Khaled al-Mishri said Monday.
Mishri made his statement during a press conference held after the 36th session of the HCS, which advises both the HoR and Presidency Council, at its headquarter in Tripoli to discuss the council’s stance toward restructuring the executive authority and the amendments made by HoR to the referendum law.
The Skhirat Agreement, also known as the political agreement, was signed in December 2015 in Morocco to end the civil war in Libya, raging since in 2014, and unify the government.
The Skhirat Agreement was put into practice on April 6, 2016 as the Government of the National Accord (GNA), led by Faiez al-Sarraj, was the first concrete outcome of the agreement. The first meeting of the GNA cabinet took place on Jan. 2, 2016 in Tunisia.
The HCS has objected to Article 6 which stipulates that Libya should be divided into three electoral districts in Fezzan, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica instead of one, with the requirement that each district receives 50 percent+one of the voters to pass the draft constitution.
Article 6 is controversial as it contradicts the existing operative temporary constitution in Libya, known as the Transitional Constitutional Declaration of 2011 as amended in 2014.
Prior to this amendment, Libya had been treated as one voting district by the Transitional Constitution.
The HoR also declared a need for the draft constitution to receive the approval of 50 percent+one in each region as well two thirds of the Libyan people’s approval nationwide.
Meanwhile, Mishiri declared that the council agrees on restructuring the Presidency Council to include a president, two deputies and a separate prime minister as head of government, rather than nine members.
Previously, Nadia Omran, member of the Constituent Assembly, which is responsible for drafting the new constitution, said in a Nov. 27 press release that the amendment made by the HoR to the constitution was “unconstitutional.”
“Any amendment to the constitutional declaration requires a vote of no less than 120 MPs, while those who attended today’s session and voted on the amendment did not exceed 105 member,” Omran explained.
