Some re-elected candidates to 17th Tibetan parliament fussing about taking oath?

(TibetanReview.net, Jun01’21) – The swearing in of the members of the new, 17^th Tibetan Parliament in Exile (TPiE), postponed from May 30 to Jun 8 due to the current pandemic restrictions in the state, may see some of the re-elected candidates throwing up a tantrum over the issue of taking their oath of office. It remains to be seen how, if at all, they will manage to become members without taking their oath of office in the prescribed manner.

The grumpy elected candidates, who are said to be mostly from the Dotoe and religious seat constituencies, were among the members of the 16^th Tibetan Parliament in Exile who had engineered the blatantly illegal removal of the entire panel of justice commissioners of the Tibetan Supreme Justice Commission (TSJC) on Mar 25.

Their grouse is that their oath of office will be administered by a pro tem speaker (temporary speaker who presides over the first meeting of the TPiE after the general elections) who had been sworn in by the Chief Justice Commissioner who had been “removed” from office by the TPiE from office.

These re-elected candidates are said to insist that their removal of the justice commissioners of the TSJC stood despite the fact that it was illegal, had led to a breakdown of the Charter of Tibetans in Exile which was left without a TSJC, and raised a huge uproar in the Tibetan society. Their contention is that the justice commissioner dismissed by them illegally cannot make a valid swearing in of the pro tem speaker.

Come Jun 8 and we will know what happens.

Dotoe re-elected candidate Serta Tsultrim is already reported to have called the swearing in of Sikyong Penpa Tsering by the Chief Justice Commissioner at a ceremony on May 27, which took place in an online presence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, ‘unlawful’.

The Sikyong swearing in ceremony was boycotted by some of the Standing Committee members of the TPiE – four of them, including the Deputy Speaker, by means of resigning from the committee. There were also three other Standing Committee members who resigned in protest against the boycott-decision of the majority of the Standing Committee.

With a number of the 16^th TPiE members who engineered the illegal sacking of the entire panel of justice commissioners of the TSJC having got re-elected to the 17^th and stoutly standing by the “validity” of the 16^th TPiE decision, the sanctity of the Charter of Tibetans in Exile continues to remain fragile.