Joint session due as Parliament split over two bills

AMMAN — The Senate on Tuesday insisted for the second time on its decision of regarding two draft laws deliberated by the two Houses recently.

The two bills are the residency and foreigner affairs and the domanial money collection, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Accordingly, a joint session of Parliament will be scheduled to resolve the issue in accordance with Article 92 of the Constitution. 

Also during Tuesday's Upper House meeting, senators approved the Lower House's decision to pass the 2016 elections law after accepting a simple amendment added by the Senate. 

The issue between the Senate and the House in regard to the 2015 draft domanial money collection law lies in Paragraph A of Article 17. 

The provision imposes an accumulative fine of 9 per cent annually on each unpaid financial claim that was not settled, provided that shall not exceed 50 per cent of the claim value except for claims that have fines under other regulations.

The senators do not want fines to be imposed in the first place. 

The Senate also scrapped an article added by the Lower House to the draft residence and foreigner affairs bill, which allowed the issuance of a residence permit for a foreigner if his/her mother is a Jordanian.

MPs insisted during a previous session that foreigners have to pay JD50 annually to renew their residency permits and pay JD15 to issue a new permit in case they lost the one they have, under their amendments to the Residency and Foreigner Affairs Law.

Nonetheless, the Senate did not agree to that and insisted that a by-law must be drafted to detail cases when fees for visas and residency permits are waivered.

Ensour agreed with the Senate on this decision, stressing that fees are covered in by-laws, while taxes are governed by laws. 

During the session, the Senate also endorsed draft amendments to the 2016 Sharia Courts Procedural Law as sent from the Lower House.

The articles of the draft law, based on its mandating reasons, are compatible with the law on the formation of Sharia Courts.

Moreover, the Senate endorsed the draft higher education institutions accreditation law for 2015.