Topalli, I did not refuse SP request

Right after returning from Washington, Mrs. Topalli explained that in her interview for “Voice of America” she had expressed the readiness of the majority for discussing any kind of change that respects the highest standards of transparency in the Parliamentary procedures.

“No one can refuse an offer that hasn’t been made. I cannot refuse something that I don’t have, not formally and not informally. As Parliament Speaker, I must say that the Albanian Parliament is open and welcomes every initiative that further improves the standards”, Topalli declared.

As regards the next step of the Socialist Party, for which their leader, Mr. Rama, declared that the opposition’s vote for the laws that require qualifying majority must be accompanied with the withdrawal of all such draft-laws that have been reviewed up to now and that they should be discussed again, the Parliament Speaker gave this comment:

“If the opposition wants the withdrawal of the draft on which all MPs of both parties have worked, then this is not a new course, but a blocking. The laws are not patches; more respect should be shown for the laws and draft-laws. The opposition MPs have amended these laws, have given their contribution and have served as rapporteurs. There is no time left; we must not hear that we are at the bottom of the list”.

Topalli gave an interview recently for Voice of America, saying that not all Socialist Party propositions for changing the Parliament Regulation will be accepted by the majority, especially for returning the law for secretly voting the Presidential Decrees and for the nomination of the Constitutional Court members and the Supreme Court.

Mrs. Topalli strongly defended this Parliamentary Regulation clause that the Socialists want to nullify. She said that it has the highest transparency standard, also used in the US Congress.

“In the US Congress it is the transparency principle that prevails. In the US Congress it is unimaginable to vote in secrecy, because it is unthinkable to have a secret voting. The MPs must be responsible for their actions in front of the citizens who elected them. Not only the judges are elected with this kind of transparency, but the Parliament Speaker is also elected with nominal vote. The only amend that we have made, is the one that has brought a higher standard, not only for the transparent nomination, as mentioned in the US Senate, but also for the fact that the topics outside the daily schedule cannot be more of a priority than the agenda of the reforms that the Albanians need”, Topalli declared.

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