“It is one of the requirement that when a bill is sent to President, it takes 14 days for the President to decide his mind as to what he should do, in this particular case he sent the bill with comment saying that Parliament needs to do further consultations with Inter Religious Councils and other stakeholders,” the Clerk intimated adding that they did held discussions with Inter Religious Councils and other stakeholders. He disclosed that their report was compiled and has been sent back to President Koroma. As to whether there were any amendments after consultations, the Clerk said that the Religious Leaders did not propose any amendment to the bill. “In fact what they say was that the bill was to be taken off the archives and law books of this country; they did not talk about amendment. No amendment was proposed by anybody, they presented their position that the bill is unreligious, they did not say certain clauses where to be amended, which would have sent the bill to a different position,” the Clerk explained
As to rumors that the President for the second time has refused to sign the bill, the Clerk said that, it is a proposition and a question difficult to answer.
“Let us wait and see the outcome and will cross that bridge when the time comes,” he said noting that the public should learn a lot on this by being interested. He urged all to go and buy copies of bill at government book shop.
He refutes suppositions that the Safe Abortion issue could be a political one since most people are not in favor of it.
Hon. Sesay said: “we have representatives of other sectors who made elaborate presentation. Even when Inter Religious Council presented they said that Islam permits abortion in special circumstance, so when you generalize by saying that the public does not want this it depend. We have close to six million people, I have not seen the number or statistics, but if you compare the 50/50 and Civil Society presentations to Inter Religious Council, you will say it was small.”
He said that the onus is on the President to see the recommendation and various positions and come out with a judgment.
“We cannot determine what the President is going to say because that is not part of our mandate, our mandate is to debate a bill, after the debate send it to government printer, check for mistakes, law officers department look at it and ensure that what was debated and passed in the House is what it contains,” Hon. Sesay said, adding that if the President refuse to sign he will state reasons.
“President Koroma is a listening President, he will listen to all and make up his mind,” the Clerk assured.
