(TibetanReview.net, Mar29’24) —The seventh session of the 17th Tibetan Parliament in Exile concluded today with the approval of an over Indian Rs 3.33 billion budget for the financial year Apr 2024-Mar 2025 of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). It also adopted most of the amendments of the Charter of Tibetans in Exile and a set of eight Rules and Regulation of the CTA recommended by its Rules and Regulation Review Committee.
However, the parliament, whose session opened on Mar 18, again failed to adopt an amendment of the Charter for the appointment of the justice commissioners of the Tibetan Supreme Justice Commission (TSJC) of the CTA, which has long been a sticking point on its agenda between two sides.
The existing criteria for the nomination of candidates for approval by the TPiE, which have been extant for 30 years, lapsed in 2021. This meant that new nominees had to fulfil the stricter remaining eligibility criteria prescribed in the Charter, which are largely adaptive copies from Article 124 of the Constitution of India. The last committee for nomination of candidates failed to find any candidate fulfilling the stricter eligibility criteria.
The amendment proposal suggested extending the old, relaxed criteria, which dispenses with this Indian constitution inspired eligibility criteria, for another 10 years. But it failed to garner the requisite two-thirds majority vote.
At the heart of this failure is the old dispute over Resolution No. 39 of the previous TPiE which summarily removed from office the entire body of justice commissions of the TSJC without even an impeachment procedure. It threw into quandary the functioning of the CTA itself, leading to the removed justice commissioners returning to their posts under strong public pressure and proceeding to administer oath to the newly elected Sikyong (executive head) of the CTA.
However, a strong section of newly elected candidates to the current TPiE – most of them members of the previous TPiE as well, belonging to the religious and one of the provincial constituencies – refused to recognize the justice commissioners’ return and rejected any idea of taking their oath from the returned chief justice commissioner.
The crisis dragged on for months and HH the Dalai Lama, on being eventually approached for advice, as mandated under the Charter, recommended that the elected candidates take their oath in the legally prescribed manner. This appeared to have resolved the issue after all the elected candidates took their oath under the auspices of the returned chief justice commissioner.
However, the members who had previously refused to take their oath under the auspices of the returned chief justice commissioner again called his and the other two justice commissioners’ return illegal and refused recognize them. Their contention is that Resolution No. 39 of the previous TPiE continues to remain on record and should be respected. The other members insist, however, that Resolution No. 39 has been rendered void ab initio in view of the subsequent course of events. They maintain that if the justice commissioners are illegal, the 17th TPiE itself is illegal.
And the deadlock continues as supporters of Resolution No. 39 refuse to allow any legislative action on the appointment of supreme justice commissioners while those who see that resolution as no longer valid refuse to accept any move to discuss its status in parliament as sought by the other group.