Prospective Legislation: Governmen

The Cabinet of Ministers approved on September 8, 2016 the draft law regulating non-governmental associations and institutions (the “Draft NGO Law”). The government has sent the Draft NGO Law to the State Council for review before sending it to the House of Representatives. According to Article 158 of the bylaws of the House of Representatives issued by Law No. 1 for the Year 2016, the draft laws shall be forwarded to the President of the House of Representatives after they are approved by either the Cabinet of Ministers or the President. He, subsequently, will present them to the House of Representatives in order to be sent to the appropriate technical committee. Furthermore, the President of the House of Representatives can directly forward the draft laws to the appropriate technical committee after informing the House of Representatives. The technical committee by then shall review the draft law and submit its report to the House of Representatives in order to be discussed and voted upon at a plenary session. It is expected that the Draft NGO Law will be discussed at the start of the second sessions of the House of Representatives at the beginning of October 2016. The Draft NGO Law will regulate non-governmental associations and organizations, foreign non-governmental organizations, the role of supporting NGO funds, in addition to the sanctions that are imposed on NGOs for violating the law. According to some media reports, the Draft NGO Law has enclosed some controversial points such as complicated procedures for notification and for opening a bank account that allegedly contradict the constitutional obligations on the government in Article 75 to have the registration of NGO through notifications and not prior approvals. The Draft NGO Law also gave additional supervisory powers to the administrative authority which is allowed to enter the headquarters of any of the NGOs and unions and access their administrative and financial records. In addition, the Draft NGO Law formed a coordinating committee with two representatives from the General Intelligence and the Ministry of Interior to approve any external grants. It should be noted that although the public focus is on the impact of the Draft NGO Law on the human rights and development organizations, the broad scope of this Law also includes business and investors associations, if they were formally registered as NGOs or civil associations.