The Pan African Parliament to be a legislative body

The new president of the Pan African Parliament (PAP), Nkodo Roger Dang has it that the ultimate goal for the institution is to make sure it is well established.

While Nkodo Roger Dang is set to arrive at Nsimalen International Airport from South Africa on June 3, 2015, many have questioned the fate of an institution that will be headed by a Cameroonian for three years.

The PAP which is headquartered in Midrand, South Africa has for a while now not achieved its main purpose.

"The PAP is one of the eleven organs that constitutes the African Union (AU), successor to the defunct African Unity organization. It is the legislative body of the Pan African institution while the African Union Commission is the executive body and the African Court of Justice and Human Rights judicial body”.

“At the birth of the African Union (AU) in Lomé (Togo) on 11 July 2000, we adopted and signed the Constitution of the PAP”, said historian and the first Deputy General Secretary, Samuel Efoua Mbozo'o.

Today, PAP is being prepared for a new encounter with the arrival of Roger Nkodo Dang because it is exercising supervisory and advisory powers which are yet to become a fully-fledged legislative body.

The PAP inaugural session took place in 2004 in Addis Ababa, chaired by Joaquin Alberto Chissano, former president of the republic of Mozambique and president of the African Union at the time. 202 out of 205 parliamentarians from 41 parliaments were expected to take part.

During this session, the parliamentarians were sworn into office where five members representing the five regions of the AU were elected. The Republic of South Africa was designated as the chair of PAP during the third Ordinary Conference of Heads of State and Government of the AU in July 2004.

Its 230 parliamentarians are not elected directly by their direct superiors but by the legislatures of the 46 AU countries. It includes five MEPs per country.

This means that two third of the member states must therefore endorse their ratification for the PAP to finally enjoy its legislative prerogatives.

Moreover, in the new Malabo protocol of the PAP amended in June 2014, the PAP members will be elected by the national parliaments.

The new Protocol implies that pending the development of a code for the PAP election by direct universal suffrage, the mode of election shall be determined by the national parliament and elections will be done simultaneously in all parliaments.