Questions by Representatives.

72. A Representative intending to submit a question to the Government or to any particular Minister shall submit such question in writing through the Office of the President.

Purpose of questions submitted.

73. The purpose of a question submitted as hereinbefore provided, is to obtain information for the House of an occurrence, news or event, or of the truthfulness of such occurrence, news or event, or of the intention or measures under consideration by the Government on a particular matter of general interest, or of the enquiries made into the reasons or purpose of some Government action or ommission.

Form and contents of questions.

74. Questions submitted by Representatives must be brief and shall not contain any offensive expressions.

Reading of answers to questions.

75. Answers to questions submitted by Representatives shall be read out by the Clerk at the next sitting following the day on which the answer is received. Copies of such answers together with the questions submitted by the Representatives shall be distributed to all Representatives prior to the commencement of the sitting of the House.

Entry of matter for debate for not receiving an answer or for receiving a non-satisfactory answer to a question.

76. If within thirty days of the day on which a question was forwarded to the appropriate authorities no answer has been received, or, if after reading an answer received and distributed as in Rule 75 provided, the Representative who submitted the question does not consider the reply to be satisfactory, then such Representative may at that same meeting or at any of the next three following meetings ask that the matter be registered for debate and the matter shall be so registered.

Procedure in entering a matter for debate.

77. A Representative wishing that any particular question or matter of general interest be debated at any sitting of the House, shall make his request upon the announcement by the President of the agenda of the next sitting of the House and shall move that such question or matter be registered for debate. In such case the provisions of Article 73.6 of the Constitution shall apply.

Procedure for debate of a matter of particularly exceptional interest.

78. Without affecting the generality of Rule 77, a Representative may ask that any question or matter of particularly exceptional interest and unforeseen circumstances be debated immediately or at any sitting of the House regardless of whether it has been entered or not in the agenda. In such case the provisions of Article 73.6 of the Constitution shall apply.

Procedure to be followed and duration of matters debated under Chapter D of the agenda.

78A. (1) The debate on matters of Chapter D of the agenda emanating either by implementation of Rule 76 or by implementation of Rules 77 and 78, shall be held in accordance with the following provisions:

(a) The President of the House, upon consent of the representatives of the political party groups and in consultation with the mover of the matter, shall determine, within a reasonable time limit before the debate on the said matter, the duration of the debate. In case that no agreement is reached, the President shall, according to his judgement, set a reasonable period of time for the debate.

(b) The time set shall be apportioned to the political party groups, in accordance with the number of Representatives of each group, unless the President of the House, upon consent of the representatives of the political party groups and after taking into consideration both the nature of the matter and the special interest of the political group to which the mover belongs, otherwise decides. The President shall set, according to his judgement, a reasonable period of time for the speeches of independent Representatives or Representatives who are members of a party which, under Article 73.12 of the Constitution, is not eligible to form such a political party group entitled to be recognized as such.

(c) The parliamentary spokesman of each political party group shall submit to the President the list of speakers of his group, in which both the order and the duration of each speech is determined:

The total duration of speeches by the Representatives of each group shall not exceed the period of time that has been set.

(2) The debate on a matter of Chapter D of the agenda for which a report has been prepared by the competent Committee of the House, shall be held according to the provisions of the present Rule, after the reading of the relevant report. In case of a report unanimously adopted by the Committee, the report shall be considered as having been read out. In case that any Representative expresses his opposition to the practice the report shall be read out.

With regard to matters on which the report has been unanimously adopted, no debate shall be held, unless any Representative so requests.

Order in which matters of Chapter D shall be debated.

78B. Unless otherwise decided by the plenary of the House, matters of Chapter D shall be debated upon in the chronological order in which they have been registered for debate.

Deletion of matters of Chapter D.

78C. Upon expiry of each term of office of the House, all maters which have been registered for debate in Chapter D and have not be debated shall be deleted from the agenda. For the re-introduction of the said matters, the procedure provided for under Rules 76, 77 and 78 shall be followed.