Election of committee chairmen
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Assembly debate on 29 January 1979 (19th Sitting) (see Doc. 4257, report of the Committee on Rules of Procedure). Text adopted by the Assembly on 29 January 1979 (19th Sitting).
- Thesaurus
The Assembly,
1. Considering that Rule 45.4 (Procedure in committee) of its Rules of Procedure provides that : "The Rules adopted for the (plenary) Assembly concerning the election of the President... shall apply to the proceedings of committees..." ;
2. Considering that, according to Rules 5, 8 and 9 of the Rules of Procedure, the President of the Assembly is elected at the opening of the annual session and "shall remain in office until the opening of the next ordinary session" ;
3. Noting that the Rules of Procedure do not specify the number of terms of office a President of the Assembly may serve, but that a twenty-year-old tradition, which has never been departed from, restricts them in fact to three ;
4. Noting that this tradition does not apply to committee chairmen ;
5. Believing that it is desirable to ensure a periodical change in the chairmanship of committees, while at the same time maintaining some continuity in the action and work of the committees,
6. Decides :
a to insert in Rule 45.4, of its Rules of Procedure a new sub-paragraph a, worded as follows : "The chairman of a committee shall remain in office until the opening of the next ordinary session of the Assembly. He may be re-elected for two further terms, and for a fourth term if the committee so decides by a two-thirds majority. In no circumstances may the same committee chairman remain in office for more than four years" ;
b that this new rule shall enter into force at the opening of the 31st Ordinary Session of the Assembly (in the spring of 1979), but that it shall apply to committee chairmen at present in office only at the start of the 32nd Session (in the spring of 1980).
