KUWAIT: Opposition MPs yesterday stepped up their campaign against the constitutional court ruling that considered article 16 of the National Assembly's internal charter as unconstitutional with one lawmaker saying the ruling should not be even debated by the assembly.

MP Mohammad Al-Dallal said the ruling violated the constitutional court's powers which do not apply to decisions taken by the national assembly. Article 16 is crucial because the assembly depended on it to vote to keep the membership of MPs Waleed Al-Tabtabai and Jamaan Al-Harbash although they were handed a jail term for taking part in storming the national assembly in 2011.

Dallal said that the court ruling not only abolished article 16, which is under its powers, but also exceeded that to cancel the assembly decision to keep the membership of the two lawmakers which is not under the court's powers. He stressed that the court ruling does not apply to the assembly decision over the lawmakers' membership and accordingly the assembly should not discuss the issue and the membership should stay.

The assembly is expected to take up the issue at its forthcoming meeting on January 30 unless the constitutional court takes an unexpected decision over the issue after a lawyer demanded that the court should explain its ruling.

Commodities' prices

In another development, MP Askar Al-Enezi yesterday submitted a proposal calling on the commerce minister to present a report every six months to the national assembly about the prices of essential commodities and price rises in the country. The proposal also calls on the minister to outline measures adopted by the ministry to contain any price hikes especially with regards to essential commodities.

Enezi also said that the minister should attach to the report a list containing the current prices of the most important 30 essential commodities and their previous prices to allow the assembly to compare if the ministry measures were successful enough to curb price increases. The lawmaker said he submitted the proposal because prices of essential commodities have been rising steadily while the ministry made no effort to stop them and curb price rises. Enezi said the ministry failure to curb price hikes has negatively impacted food security in the country.

By B Izzak