Bioethics law. Four non-attached MPs seize the Constitutional Council to have more time to speak

While the National Assembly finishes this Wednesday evening the review of the bioethics law, several deputies complain about their time deemed too short. Four of them, including Jean Lassalle and Agnès Thill, seized the Sages, denouncing a "serious violation of the constitutional rights of parliamentarians."

Four non-attached MPs, including Jean Lassalle and Agnès Thill (formerly LREM), appealed to the Constitutional Council to ask for speaking time in the Chamber, a subject on which almost all the opposition protested during the meeting. while the examination of the bioethics bill is coming to an end.

In a letter to the Sages sent Wednesday to the press, the four elected, including Emmanuelle Ménard and Marie-France Lorho, both extreme right, denounce "a serious violation of the constitutional rights of parliamentarians" because of the decision to apply a 50-hour "legislated time" to this text.

With this procedure, decided at a conference of Presidents of the Assembly, the maximum duration fixed for the whole text is broken down between the political groups. It does not include, in particular, the speaking time of ministers and rapporteurs. Non-registrants, 13 in total, received an hour in total.

This programmed legislative time gaggles the expression of the non-registered. It is impossible to speak in the hemicycle on the serious subjects of this theory. This questions our democracy. I seize the Constitutional Council pic.twitter.com/oKTE0qDtxF

An attack on the "clarity of parliamentary debate"

This provokes "a quasi impossibility for a non-attached parliamentarian to defend a point of view in a coherent way" , during a "debate essential for French society" , deplore the signatories, all opposed to the opening of medically assisted procreation (PMA) to lesbian couples and single women, the flagship measure of the bill.

This "imbalance", according to them, "undermines the constitutional requirement of clarity and sincerity of the parliamentary debate" . They ask the Constitutional Council to annul the decision of "scheduled legislative time" .

Earlier this week, Jean Lassalle, former presidential candidate, lamented before the Assembly that he had only 3 minutes and 40 minutes to express himself, and "never been so mistreated by a president of the National Assembly " .

The opposition is standing up

In session Wednesday, the deputies The Republicans were indignant at their lack of speaking time, supported by almost all the opposition in a long series of recalls to the regulations.

"We just want a serious discussion , " said Thibault Bazin. His colleague Marc Le Fur ruled that LRs were treated as "outcasts" .

The Socialist Hervé Saulignac regretted that this lack of speaking time gives a very "bad image of the Assembly". "This house is submerged by the flow of texts and taken in an untenable calendar. "

No scheduled time extension

On the LREM side, Guillaume Chiche stressed that the "50-hour debate time is much more important than normal" and that LR "has had the greatest amount of time" .

Meeting on Wednesday at the request of the LR group, the conference of Presidents of the Assembly refused him "any extension time" , according to the presidency, which stressed that "all the other groups has mastered the management of his time . "

At the end of two and a half weeks of discussions, ie some 75 hours in total, the Assembly must complete in the evening a hearty 32-clause bill before its solemn vote on 15 October. "The bioethical debate of 2011 lasted 28 hours," says the presidency of the Assembly.

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