The House of Representatives (HoR) was supposed to hold 95 general sessions throughout the year, but for several reasons, less than the half of this number was actually held.
This situation can be ascribed to the frequent absence or boycott of some HoR members to the sessions for several reasons, and the HoR speaker Aguila Saleh’s official foreign trips sometimes. The repeated clashes in the capital of Tripoli and bad weather also prevented many members from attending the HoR sessions.
One of the most prominent decisions made by the HoR in 2018 was the election of Mohamed Al-Shoukry as the new governor of the parallel Central Bank of Libya in al-Bayda, eastern Libya, late January. In the same session, the HoR also discussed the constitutional referendum law.
In a later session, they discussed adding the Libyan Political Agreement to the Constitutional Declaration, which took a lot of time for approval.
This year, the HoR approved new appointments in the east-based Interim Government, most notably the appointment of Ibrahim Bushnaf as Minister of Interior.
In late July, the HoR held a session to vote on the draft constitution when the members disagreed over Article 8 concerning the constitutional referendum. The session was postponed to mid-August, but armed clashes erupted in the vicinity of the HoR headquarters and MP Saleh Hashim was injured, so the session was canceled.
In October, the HoR approved a law to increase the salaries of teachers and discussed raising the pensions of retirees. In the same month, the House summoned the Head of the Interim Government, Abdullah Al-Thinni, and the Minister of Finance to discuss the state budget for 2019.
In November, the parliament held two sessions in which the Constitutional Declaration was amended and the Constitutional Referendum Law was immunized.
As the year comes to an end, a question was raised about the HoR members’ frequent absences which affect the House’s role to serve the interests of the country, taking into consideration that their mandate has expired and was only extended by Skhirat Agreement.
