(TibetanReview.net, Sep16’24) – The 8th session of the 17th Tibetan Parliament in exile (TPiE) is to resume on Sep 17 morning following a meeting of the Speaker, the Kashag and TPiE members, reported the Tibetan-language Tibettimes.net Sep 16.
The regular, biannual session began on Sep 11 but could not be resumed from Sep 14 afternoon for lack of quorum after some members claimed that “general public” Tibetans who took their protest before the parliament building that day posed a threat to their personal safety.
Those Tibetans have been protesting on a nearby basketball court under the banner of “People’s Movement for Securing the Central Tibetan Administration”, organized by a group calling itself “The Advocacy of the General Public for the Sustainability of CTA”. They have been calling for the TPiE to carry out the long-ignored amendment of the Charter of Tibetans in Exile to provide for the appointment of the justice commissioners of the Tibetan Supreme Justice Commission (TSJC), to which the absentee members have been vehemently opposed thus far.
The session did not resume today also as the absentee members were demanding an assurance for their personal safety from the Central Tibetan Administration’s Department of Security.
As attending members of the TPiE kept asking the Speaker to find a way to enable the continuation of the session, the “general public” protest organizers issued a press statement this afternoon, denying that the protest action on Sep 14 posed any danger to the personal safety of the TPiE members as alleged by a section of its members, that the Department of Security of the CTA was assured of it on Sep 15 and it was being repeated in today’s press statement as well.
Seizing on TPiE member Geshe Monlam Tharchin’s remark that it was incumbent on the TPiE to amend the Charter to provide for the appointment of the justice commissioners of the TSJC, and that all the TPiE members fully knew it, the press statement pleaded for this amendment to be carried out at the earliest, rather than the matter being relegated towards the end of the session.
Then, a little after 4:30 pm, religious constituency member Geshe Atuk Tseten, speaking on behalf of four Dotoe and religious constituency members, was reported to have spoken of having remarked that yesterday (Sep 15), the religious and Dotoe constituency members of the TPiE had informed the Speaker and Deputy Speaker that they would not attend the session if the Kashag and the Department of Security were not in a position to assure their personal safety. He has also said that the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker had now called them over, and informed them that the Kashag had assured them that the Department of Security would take responsibility for the security arrangement.
“The situation is now such that we will continue to attend the TPiE session,” Atuk Tseten has added.
Meanwhile, Geshe Monlam Tharchin and Dotoe TPiE member Mr Kunchok Yangphel indicated in their media interactions that the issue on which a section of the TPiE members were not allowing the Charter to be amended to provide for the appointment of the justice commissioners continued to remain.