Rwanda Parliament Passes Draft Constitution Amendment

The Rwandan parliament has unanimously passed the first draft amendment constitutional with a 71 members of parliament giving a go ahead, and only five votes remained withheld and nullified.

The vote was made after a detailed debate and questioning on some of the articles, especially article 101 where parliament demanded that the commission clearly states what citizens demanded for when petitioning parliament for the amendment process.

Over three million Rwandans petitioned parliament over the constitution amendment on article 101, asking that the

Presenting to the low house of deputies, the commission’s vice chairperson, Usta Kayitesi said that all articles including article 101 have been revised and will have to go through referendum based on the popular voice of Rwandans.

She also said that views of amending article 101 were prominent and the removal of term limits was highly considered in amending the constitution giving the president (Paul Kagame) another seven years and an open ended term limit afterwards.

She also stated that the process of amending other articles was vigorous and considering time spent, the committee had to deal with various issues such as the need to correct some articles, terminology and eliminate outdated phrases, example on the establishment of Gacaca courts.

“If we get a go ahead on this first draft, there is more that will be changed but the issue we kept clear was not to have many irrelevant articles which can be supported by the laws, but we didn’t create any juridical gaps in amending the constitution.” Kayitesi said.

The voted bill will be submitted to the senate. Once the senate approves it as is, a referendum will be held without fail.

The senate is not likely to overturn the massively voted bill, considering the fact even the Supreme Court last week ruled in fovour of the amendment in a controversial court case by the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda that sued against the amendment.

Both the date for the senate’s approval and the consequential referendum were not discussed.