Mongolia celebrates Constitution Day

On January 13, Mongolia marks the Day of new Constitution adopted in 1992. On the occasion of that day, The President, Prime Minister, Parliament Speaker and MPs laid a wreath at the Chinggis Khaan Statue. The President and Parliament Speaker delivered addresses for the day. Speaker D. Demberel said, “On January 13, 1992, People’s Ikh Khural of Mongolia adopted a Constitution that determined the new tendency of social development.

The Constitution has historical significance that declares sovereignty, independence, human rights, freedom, distribution of State powers and principles of democratic and market relations.” In his address, the President said, “Nineteen years ago, in testimony of our Democratic Revolution of the Year of White Horse of 1990, Mongolia adopted a new Constitution, upholding human rights and liberties and proclaiming in a genuine sense, our independence and sovereignty.” They expressed their positions on satisfying implementation of the Constitution and the issue of amending the Constitution which has been talked about much in recent times. Parliament Speaker D. Demberel mentioned that under the ordinance of the Speaker, a working group was set up and the Parliament adopted a law on rules to amend the Constitution in collaboration with scholars, experts and professionals. He said, “With this law, it has been restricted to amend ideology, basic structure and immovable principles that are main soul of the Constitution. For instance, it has been banned to amend 25 provisions including: Basic human rights and freedom, the principle of distributing State powers, Mongolia’s independence and sovereignty, adherence of democracy and justice, reverence of laws, Mongolian language as the State official language, as well as others. Amendments to be made to the Constitution must be open and transparent for the public beginning from its first stage to work out proposals, ensure participation of citizens, public organizations and political parties and meet the legal requirements to hear their opinions.”
The Working Group was set up to study and work out suggestions relating to making amendments to the Constitution. The working group is obliged to make a proposal after studing suggestions and opinions made by citizens about creating conditions so people can live healthy and safe, strengthening local selfgovernance, enhancing powers of local administrations, developing distributions of administrative and territorial units, as well as efficiency of amendtments to the Constitution in 2000. Speaker D. Demberel considered that law initiators need not make each bill, but suggestions should be accurately studied and arranged in combination when making amendments to the Constitution as amendments to the Constitution shall not be changed and shall constantly be followed for 8 years according to the law. President Ts. Elbegdorj noted that everything on earth changes, reforms and is reborn as time elapses. The Constitution also obeys this law of nature, so some changes and amendments may be needed to enrich it at times. However, there are certain values and principles in the Constitution that should never be shattered or challenged. It is of supreme importance that these fundamental principles are reiterated in the Law of Mongolia on Procedures to Change the Constitution and the National Security Concepts. A Bill was worked-out by 15 MPs to amend the Constitution. With the Bill, two issues were asserted in the amendment. For instance, a majority of the Cabinet is composed of Members of Parliament. According to the Bill, it will be changed and not more than one third of the Cabinet composition shall be parliament members. Also, according to current law, the Parliament Speaker and Deputy Speaker are elected by open polling among MPs and it is believed it restricts the rights of MPs to freely give polls without censorship or pressure from political parties which could cause them to give polls under the direct control of the party. Therefore, in the amendment it was suggested to elect the Speaker and Deputy Speaker by a secret vote. The Bill has not been submitted to Parliament yet as it was sent to government for consideration.

Source: Mongol Messenger newspaper of Mongolian news agency Montsame