The Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) issued a position statement dated January 30, 2019, calling for enacting a law relating to the recall of elected representative from the legislature.

The statement says USDP seriously urges and calls for enacting a law relating to recall of the elected people’s representative from the legislature in order to take effective action against people’s representatives who violate the provisions in article 369(a) of 2008 Constitution and lest losing civic rights enshrined in the said constitution.

In the beginning of the statement, it says article 4 of Constitution stipulates ‘the sovereign power of the Union is derived from the citizens and is in force in the entire country, and moreover, article 369(a) stipulates, ‘subject to this constitution and relevant laws, every citizen has the right to elect and right to be elected to the House of Representatives and House of Nationalities and the Region or State legislative assembly’ and article 369(b) stipulates, ‘relevant electorate has the right to recall a parliament representative in accordance with the law’.

The statement further says, article 396(a) stipulates ‘A representative of the parliament may be recalled on any of the following reasons: (1) high treason, (2) breach of any provision of this constitution, (3) misconduct, (4) disqualification prescribed in this constitution for parliament representative and (5) inefficient discharge of duty assigned to. And also, article 396(b) stipulates ‘A minimum of one per cent out of the original voters of the electorate of the constituency concerned shall submit the complaint to the Union Election Commission against the parliament representative on whom it wishes to recall.’

The USDP party statement further referred article 397 of the constitution which stipulates ‘Union Parliament (joint session of both houses) shall enact the necessary laws on matters relating to Election and matters relating to Recall.