The Parliament Speaker Stanislav Kochiev told IA RES about the priority tasks and plans of the new Parliament.
What are the priority tasks of the new Parliament?
First, it is necessary to form of all structures of the Parliament and identify deputies to the Speaker and heads of these structures. Today, the most important is technical work, then we will elaborate the working plan for the next 6 months, for a year and will work in accordance with this schedule.
It is rather a technical work. What about law-making?
As to law-making, it is difficult to speak about it now. We have to gather in the Parliament and with the Government Presidium to discuss all issues together with the President, Government, Prosecutor General and the Supreme Court. We will be working on the laws needed for these power structures. President Kokoity had repeatedly stated that he was ready to grant the
Parliament with more authority. How will it practically look like?
I think that the new Parliament should start working on a new Constitution. This Constitution will first of all identify all the power to be delegated by the President to the Parliament. In the first instance, the Presidnet meant that the Parliament should more actively participate in government forming, and he also spoke about the accountability of the government before the Parliament. I will not speak about other aspects of this issue – this should be decided by the Commission to be established by the President.
The new Parliament remained semi-professional, as it was the previous one. Are you going to take steps to ensure that the next Parliament members will be professionals?
Already during the forth Parliament we had unanimously voted for a professional parliament. The work would be easier, and it would be more efficient. A professional parliament is a sign of a solid state with a solid law-making body. Taking into consideration the current grave financial situation, it was decided that the parliament would stay semi-professional. I do not like this definition, and I do not think it corresponds to the essence. It would more precisely to say that some of the MPs will work professionally. These are the Speaker, his deputies and committee chairpersons.
