Political parties back to electoral square one after fall of amnesty law
The Lebanese National Bloc Party criticized the way the amnesty law proposal was dropped in the legislative session yesterday, describing it as a trade off by the authority to gain sectarian and clientelistic ends against victims’ rights to either punish or forgive a perpetrator. In a statement the Bloc said that this has exposed the fragility of the alliances, and returned political parties to their first electoral square. The Bloc saw that it was useless to lift bank secrecy without completing the judicial appointments and adopting the “Judicial Independence Law”.
Below is the full statement:
The general amnesty law fell in yesterday’s legislative session as was expected. The Bloc had in a previous statement explained its position about it when it was first proposed, however, today’s approach is different and it is a question of right and wrong. Pardon of a crime should be based on the victim’s right to seek punishment or forgiveness.
What we witnessed yesterday was a trading of these rights for political, clientelistic, and sectarian gains, exposing the fragility of political alliances described as patriotic and idealistic, and bringing the political parties to their first electoral squares; this is far from any right and is wrong personified.
Pertaining to the draft laws that were voted for, faults abound:
There is no use in lifting banking secrecy without completing judicial appointments, which will hopefully exclude judges with political affiliations, and without passing the law for an independent judiciary, and for persecuting the ministers, a law that fell in the previous session since the ministers are mainly responsible for corruption in their ministries.
There is no use in the mechanism for appointing first-class employees by involving the “Civil Service Council” and the Ministry of Administrative Development, as long as those in charge of this council and this ministry are subject to a political system that does not care about competencies, but rather prioritizes blind loyalty to the leader.
There is no use in the 1200 billion Lebanese Pound plan without prior study setting the precise needs and priorities of each sector. Additionally, no economic plan that maps economic recovery, purchasing power, and liberation from the influence of sectarian parties has been made before addressing assistance of the poorest families.
This amount that has been added to the budget deficit of 2020 did not come with any efforts to reduce spending: It will only increase the government’s debt, and will be eventually paid by the nation. Here we refer those concerned to a study conducted by the Lebanese National Bloc Party on March 24, which decreases budget expenditures up to one thousand and one hundred billion Lebanese pounds.