The President of the Constitutional Council, Judge Tannous Meshlab, held a press conference at the Hadath Constitutional Council, in the presence of the members of the Council, to decide on an appeal against the budget law.
Meshlab said: “Our country is not in the normal position to tell the government or the House of Representatives to present a settlement of accounts, especially as we are going through somewhat exceptional circumstances.
First: expulsion of the summoner, Mr. Rami Feng, from the review for lack of ability.
Secondly – in the form:
Acceptance of the review for its receipt within the terms of the law and for the fulfillment of all its formal conditions.
Third – Basically:
1- Invalidation due to unconstitutionality of the articles 16, 21, 32, 89 and 119 of the contested law.
2- Abolish the phrase “exempt categories” contained in articles 53 and 54, and the word “issued” by art. 109 of the contested law, and therefore suppress it from the text of the aforementioned articles.
3- Rejection of the request for nullity of the contested law for violation of articles 32, 83, 84 and 87 of the Constitution.
4- Rejection of the request for invalidation of articles 11, 17, 22, 82, 87 and 99 of the contested law.
5- Reject the application for invalidation of art. 111 of the contested law, while fortifying it with the obligatory interpretative reserve contained in the body of this decision.
He added: “Government procurement has been appealed by extending the deadlines for the implementation of the laws that have been enacted and which prevent the sale and disposal of land in the Al-Kafour area, and in the revised Mayors Law, and we have invalidated these three issues because they have nothing to do with the budget law, we also have entry and exit taxes for the airport, and this is the taxing power.”
On the issue of multiple exchange rates, Meshlab said, “We considered that there should be an official exchange rate and explained the issue.”
In response to a question about income tax for retired military personnel, he said, “Income tax has stayed the same.”
And he continued: “The decisions of the Constitutional Council are binding on everyone. We have been working on the budget law for more than a month and if the budget is not approved there will be a kind of chaos. Some of them believe that the Constitutional Council to be like the judicial system or something else, and I say that the Constitutional Council is an independent body and the President of the Constitutional Council is the one who fixes the budget, and appoints the reception commissioner, and he is a controller of the expenses. office of the council and approves the budget as a whole.The president of the council has the powers of a minister, and we are not associated with anyone, and article 20 of the constitution gives guarantees to the judge to continue his work.
