President Meta’s decree on the National Theater special law has returned to parliament for a second time. Speaker Gramoz Ruçi gave the news today, during the plenary session.
According to Parliament protocol, the decree is expected to be discussed again by the Parliamentary Committee on Productive Activity, Commerce, and Environment, however, so far, it is not known whether this has been included in the Committee’s agenda.
Following its discussion by the Committee, if such a discussion will indeed be held, the law must go to Parliament for a vote, and needs to pass with 71 votes.
On October 11, Meta refused, for the second time, to sign the ‘modified’ National Theater law. Earlier, on July 27, Meta also refused to sign the first Theater law.
In his 27 July decree, Meta cited nine violations including the fact that the law violates the Constitution, European conventions, principles of the Stabilization and Association Agreement (MSA) concerning fair competition and the principle of the division of powers.
The law was sent back to the Committee to be discussed, and was modified slightly, in trivial ways. On September 20, the Socialist majority once again passed the ‘modified’ law.
President Meta did not agree with the Socialist majority’s modifications, explaining that they failed to address any of the constitutional violations, or the violations of Democratic principles, the President had pointed out in July, when he refused to sign the law for the first time.
Out of nine violations that Meta pointed out in the first Theater law, the Socialist majority only attempted to address one, concerning the preferential and unfair treatment of a private subject. Nonetheless, even in the new law, this issue has not been resolved.
