- If the President advises the Speaker to dissolve Parliament, the Constitution says that advice must be referred to Parliament.
- The Supreme Court has clarified what “referral to Parliament” actually requires.
- The Court has said that “referral” is not just a matter of reading out the advice in the House. It also requires that members are given an opportunity to consider and debate the advice.
- So far, since the President’s advice was read out to the House on 18 April, there has not been any opportunity for debate. That means the advice has not yet been referred.
- Under the Constitution, the Speaker can only dissolve the House 7 days after the advice has been referred.
- Until members are given the opportunity to debate the advice, the 7 days does not start to run. It is not yet known when the House will be dissolved or when an election can lawfully be held.
- If there had been a quorum today (30 April 2013) and the debate had begun, the Speaker would have been required to dissolve Parliament 7 days later, next Tuesday 7 May and the election could have been held on 8 June.
- The Constitution is the supreme law of Nauru adopted in 1968 by the people through the Constitutional Convention. It creates the three branches of government: the executive (Cabinet), the legislature (Parliament) and the judiciary (the Supreme Court) and each of those three branches is bound to act in accordance with the Constitution.
- Article 54 of the Constitution gives the Supreme Court exclusive jurisdiction to ‘determine any question arising under or involving the interpretation or effect of [the] Constitution.’ The Court was exercising this jurisdiction when it decided the two recent cases concerning the correct interpretation of Article 41.
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