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{
    "id": 1001531,
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    "content": "(iii) Whereas Article 251 of the Constitution prescribes a standard single year term for members of other constitutional commissions and holders of independent offices under general procedure for removal from office that may be initiated by any person, Article 127 of the Constitution ties the term of the office of a member of PSC to the term of Parliament unless either a person ceases to be a MP or upon the revocation of their appointment by Parliament for both the member and the non- members of Parliament. (iv) Unlike other constitutional commissions, the membership of the PSC is largely drawn from MPs and, indeed, out of the ten members of the Commission, eight are MPs. (v) The PSC and the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA) are the only constitutional commissions in which political parties largely nominate the membership. (vi) Whereas in the case of all other commissions, members are not eligible for re- appointment upon serving for a term of six years, in the case of PSC, once a term of an MP ends, if the Member is re-elected, such a Member is still eligible for re- appointment to the Commission subject to a fresh process of re-appointment being undertaken by the Houses. This was the case in respect of the Member for Eldas Constituency, Hon. Aden Keynan, who is now serving his third consecutive term in the Commission. (vii) Unlike other commissions where the Secretary is also the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) under Article 250 (12) of the Constitution, in the case of the PSC under Article 127 (3), the authority of the Clerk of the Senate is limited to being the Secretary to the Commission. (viii) Whereas all other constitutional commissions under Article 251 on the removal process applies to all members of a commission and does not distinguish between a member or a chairperson, the Constitution provides specific procedures for the removal of the Speaker of the National Assembly, who serves as the Chairperson of the PSC and the Chief Justice, who is the Chairperson of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), at Articles 106 (2c) and 168, respectively. Hon. Members, this analysis of the differences I have just outlined, leads to two inescapable conclusions. The first conclusion is that Article 127 of the Constitution governs the appointment of a person as a member of the PSC. The second conclusion is that the same Article of the Constitution also governs the vacation from office of a person appointed to the PSC by Parliament. Save for the specific question that I have alluded to — which was asked by the Member for Rarieda on 22nd February 2018 regarding re-appointment of a member to the PSC in a new House — and which I comprehensively addressed at that time, we have not had any other queries on the process of appointment of persons to the PSC. The Houses have construed and settled on the interpretation that all members of the Commission, save for the Chairperson, are appointed by the Houses of Parliament and that has been the precedence even after the enactment of the 2010 Constitution. The process of how one gets into the Commission is, therefore, straightforward. Hon. Members, the next step now is to draw a nexus between the appointment and the process of removal. That is, how a member of the PSC comes into office and how he or she may be removed. A reading of the provisions of Article 127 (4) (b) of the Constitution reveals that, if The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}