By BRONSON PETTITT
Mexico Weekly / March 24, 2011
The Mexico City Legislative Assembly (ALDF) agreed on Wednesday to enforce fines on lawmakers who fail to attend committee meetings amid a mountain of bills that have not been debated.
The sanctions include a 50-percent deduction from the offending legislator's daily food stipend (approximately $96) for each committee meeting missed. The fines have never been enforced since the assembly was established back in 1997, Milenio reported Thursday.
As of Wednesday night, 24 of the 36 committees in the ALDF submitted attendance lists, Milenio reported. The lists also include tardy arrivals and specify if absences were justified (due to illness, or if committee meetings coincide with other committee meetings to which a legislators belongs).
ALDF bylaws say that any member who misses three consecutive committee meetings without permission or justification will be removed from that particular committee.
The ALDF president, Alejandra Barrales of the PRD, said the fines are meant to increase productivity and efficiency. ALDF leadership will even consider removing committee presidents and changing committee structure if attendance does not improve, Barrales told Milenio.
Earlier this week, the ALDF fined 18 lawmakers a total of 50,521 pesos ($4,210) for missing one or more of the seven floor sessions that took place in December. This was the first time such fines have ever been handed out in ALDF history, Milenio reported Tuesday.
PRD members accumulated the most absences in December, followed by PAN, PRI and Labor Party members.
In an attempt to tackle the two-year backlog of 347 bills still waiting to be debated in various committees, the ALDF announced earlier this month it would increase its weekly sessions from two to three. The Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, with lawmakers from every state in the country, only meet twice a week.
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