Opposition Calls For Dissolution Of Constitution Commission

This article was last updated on May 25, 2022

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Onyoti Adigo says that South Sudanese were not fully involved in its establishment, a situation that will present unfairness in the permanent constitution making.

The leader of the minority parties in the South Sudan National Assembly while addressing civil society groups, government officials and academia in Juba said government efforts in boosting capacity of the commission to do its work with fairness is not convincing, citing the mass representation of the SPLM ruling party in the commission, lack of funding and a situation of few members only fully involved in the day-to-day affairs of the commission’s work among other anomalies.

Onyoti said the questions which would have been shared by South Sudanese at the on set of the commission such as the objectives of reviewing the constitution; shareholders in making the constitution, how the commission to get its funding among others were never given a room compromising democratic process of establishing the commission.

“In fact now I would advise the Chairman of the Commission to put to the President that from now we are starting for two years because the one year had gone,” said Onyoti.

“So we should accept either to restore or dissolve the commission and appoint new people,” Onyoti said.

Of the 55 members of the NCRC in which 46 are part timers, SPLM besides the other parties has a representation of 26 members as some of the seats were distributed to the civil society and some of the political parties.

Despite one year of no activities by the Commission due to government failure to fund the commission, the NCRC Chairperson Prof. Akolda said the commission faces funding challenges at the moment to effectively run the commission’s activities.

He also decried of inactiveness of some of the members in the commission’s work, saying they hold senior government positions which compromise their active participation in the commission’s work.

Civil society actually expressed fears of how best would democracy takes place when it comes to voting during issues of concern that will arise and create controversy at times of meetings or debates taking the spirit of inactive participation of the some of the members.