In response to “On The Borama Municipal Council Action" By Adan H.Iman - August 11, 2004 - 07:29
First the facts about the Borama Municipal Council’s recent meeting, which reportedly ousted the Mayor and his deputy, as reported by the newspapers. The newspaper report says, 12 out of 21 members of the Borama Municipal Council met without informing the man they want to unseat him and other members of the council whom they thought would oppose them, and declared that the elected Mayor and his deputy were sacked by a majority vote. The newspaper report said, the meeting that took place was attended by 12 members of the council. Out of the 12 one chaired the meeting and therefore has only a casting vote in case of a tie, that is if it was a legally constituted meeting, and one member abstained. As a result 10 members out of 21 members voted to oust the Mayor and his deputy accusing them of inefficiency and corruption. It is fair to assume that the remaining members were opposed to the meeting and the ouster of the Mayor and his deputy. It looks as though the house is split in the middle and there is not much of a majority to talk about. On the face of it, it looks like a revolt rather than a genuine exercise of democracy.
However the question here is not about a majority vote as much as it is about the rule of law. No meeting could legally be convened without the knowledge of the Mayor, the Chair person or without the knowledge of all members of the council. If for some reason some members were unable to attend the said meeting for some extenuating circumstances, at least a quorum must be sought to legalize the meeting. The member who alleged chaired the session can not chair the whole house but can only chair his own group by their own consent. Secondly this session can not be convened without the knowledge of the Mayor or his deputy who are the center of the controversy. In a legally convened meeting where important decisions are made such as this, a meeting will be called, a time will be fixed a quorum will be in place and the provincial authority will be called not to take part in the selection but to witness the legality of the meeting’s deliberations.
In a democracy or in any civilized session, a legally constituted entity or law makers would be the first to observe the legality of their actions. The Council was elected and legally constituted and as such all their actions must be legal and transparent. When a group of dissenters for good or bad decide to take the law into their hands, they should know that they are undoing the law that brought them to the office in the first place. You just can’t breach the most rudimentary tenet of rule in the name of fighting inefficiency or corruption even if as they say their premises is right --fighting corruption. To paraphrase it, the Members of the Council, either don’t respect the law or just don’t understand the law. In either case the members in question made a bad name for themselves, and for the Council for acting the way they did.
Since democracy and democratic procedures are new to our society, there bound to be mistakes and honest mistakes committed as there will be a learning period. Borama Council is not the only one that fell into this trap or quagmire, although it is the worst case scenario, other Councils have similar problems such Gabiley, Hargeisa, Berbera etc. However in all other cases due process of law was strictly observed. As a result a Mayor may come and go without much a problem or without many people noticing. Gabiley tops the list Mayor changed without making a big fuss about. Although frequent changes creates periods of uncertainty, yet the central theme of such actions is the Mayor to know that the Council is watching and have the power to get rid of him if he does not perform his duty as expected. The Mayor must be on his toes all the time and the Council must not spare the rod that spoils the child as the saying goes. So getting rid of an inefficient Mayor is healthy, provided he is really inefficient and due process of law is observed to avoid endless squalling and tit for tat conducive environment in the Council.
In the Borama Municipal case, both the inefficiency case and the due process of law were a non starter at least from my readings.
Having said that, I beg to disagree strongly with what Adan Iman wrote about this obvious mishap on the part of the members of the Borama Municipal Council, I quote “This is the first time the elected representatives of the city have exercised their constitutional prerogative to replace their leadership” unquote.
Nobody with his right mind is denying the Council their prerogative rights, on the contrary, the members were engaged in moonlighting and tried to sack the legally and lawfully elected Major and his deputy thereby trying to deny their legally constituted rights. In addition they violated the rights of half of the council who did not attend the meeting to exercise their rights. The Council should exercise their rights everyday without any restrictions, but they must do it legally. If this was the first time they exercised their rights, as Adan Iman pointed out, I think it was not worth constituting them in the first place. The public who elected those members of that council may demand better.
Mr. Iman continues to say, the municipal Council a legal entity created by law and therefore should be independent from the government. Yes they are, and nobody is to deny that. But on the other hand illegal actions can’t in any way be condoned by the government whether it is a governor or a President in case that breeds instability in the Region.
Mr. Iman tries to differentiate between officials elected and nominated. In this case whether the Governor is elected or appointed is beside the point—he is the watchdog of the Region and the lawful representative of an elected President. He is the man charged to protect the rule of law in the Region. To argue otherwise is misreading the whole concept of democratic governance. The only pertinent question to ask here is did he uphold the law or not. To argue absolute legality to an illegal action is a total hogwash. What intrigues me more than defending the indefensible, is the hidden motives behind such a defense.
Mr. Iman continues to wrongly accuse the Governor and the President by interfering in the affairs of the Council by saying qoute “If unelected official were to call the shots in those municipalities, there was no justification for those elections in the first place” unquote. What a stunning statement to dispute the election of the president. Like any other elected President, the Somaliland President can legally constitute the people who work with him, and they are legally elected or appointed as you say, whether be a governor or Minister, for that matter anybody working with the president or his government is a legal entity created by law by virtue of being appointed by an elected President.
Iman uses the word appointed by the President as though it lacks legality and only people who are elected directly by the people are legally constituted entities. In this case the Council and the president are both legal entities and they can pass and confer that legality to others by appointing them. Thus the Governor elected or appointed by the president is a legally constituted entity, and can exercise his assigned duties with due diligence. So the Awdal governor has all the rights and duties of an elected Governor. He represents the President in the Region. His legally constituted duties does not include selecting Mayors or sacking Mayors or members of the Council. His duty and the duty of the Minister of Interior or the President is to see that justice is done and the rule of law takes hold in Awdal.
Thus in the case at hand, whether the President sides one side or the other is immaterial to the subject, because the Council is totally independent of the presidency. He can not force one Council member to vote this way or that way. Even if he wrongfully tells any member to vote one way or the other the Council member can just say no and that will be the end of the story. So the whole argument of involving the president in the sad saga of the Council seems to me very enigmatic.
At one point of his argument Mr. Iman comes with another strange idea while arguing for the respect of democracy, I quote “In the same vein, appointed officials of the president should respect democracy at the local level too and refrain from using procedural arguments to invalidate the majority decisions of the municipal council”. This is by far the worst argument in defense of democracy. It also validates the argument that the invalidation of the Meeting or its outcome was due to procedural matters and not by an elected or appointed officials as Iman suggests. Once Iman comes clear in favor for forfeiting the procedures in elections or council deliberations, he misses the whole point of rule of law. Death penalties are invalidated by procedural goofs. To argue strongly for forgetting procedures in this case, is like calling for chaos not democracy. If those who are charged with upholding the law turned a blind eye to what happened that day in the Municipal Council, others would have done the same, the following day or after. Where will that lead to…obviously to hell and instability. Without observing rules and procedures to the letter, we would be less than we are today. So three cheers for those who saved the day from chaos and lawlessness. They assured us that the rule of law is intact even if the law makers themselves violate it.
Mr. Iman makes a strong correlation between upholding the governor’s action vis-ŕ-vis the Borama Council and the faith of the UDUB party in the coming election, implying if the Governor does not eat his words and declare the dissident’s vote legal, UDUB party will be in a hot soup. The faith of a party depends on more then one factor, however if one incident or one factor can help a party, this incident will boost the party’s prospects in the coming elections, because it shows how the appointed official under the current President upholds the rule of law.
By Jama Omar
jamaomar2000@yahoo.com [WM]