TITLE IV. OF THE LEGISLATIVE POWER
Article 44
The Parliament is constituted by a single Assembly, called the National Assembly, of which the members carry the title of Deputies.
Article 45
The Deputies to the National Assembly are elected for five years by direct and secret universal suffrage. They are re-eligible.
All Djiboutian citizens, enjoying their civil and political rights, twenty-three years of age or more, are eligible.
Article 46
The following may not be elected members of the National Assembly during the exercise of their functions:
- the President of the Republic,
the Prefects and Sub-Prefects, the Secretaries-General of the Government and the Ministers, the Magistrates, the controllers of the State, and the inspectors of labor and education, the members of the Armed Forces and of the National Force of Security,
Article 47
An organic law determines the number of Deputies, their indemnities, the conditions of eligibility, the regime of ineligibilities and incompatibilities, the modalities of the ballot, and the conditions in which there is reason to organize new elections in case of vacancy of seats of Deputies.
The Constitutional Council decides in case of dispute concerning the regularity of the election of the Deputies and concerning their eligibility.
Article 48
Each Deputy is the representative of the Nation. Any imperative mandate is null.
An organic law may authorize, exceptionally, the delegation of the vote. In such case no one may receive the delegation of more than one mandate.
Article 49
The National Assembly is composed of the entirety of the representatives of the national community.
Article 50
The members of the National Assembly enjoy parliamentary immunity.
No Deputy may be prosecuted, investigated, arrested, detained or judged for reason of the opinions or votes emitted by him in the exercise of his functions.
No Deputy may, during the time of the sessions, be prosecuted or arrested, in a criminal or correctional matter except in the case of flagrante delicto, without the authorization of the National Assembly.
No Deputy may, outside the sessions, be arrested without the authorization of the Bureau of the National Assembly, except in the case of flagrante delicto, of authorized prosecution or of definitive condemnation.
The detention or the prosecution of a Deputy is suspended if the National Assembly requires it.
Article 51
The National Assembly meets of plain right in two ordinary sittings per year. The first ordinary commences on March 1 and the second begins on October 1.
The duration of each ordinary session is of four months. The Bureau of the National Assembly may however decide to prolong it by a period that shall not exceed fifteen days to permit the consideration of proposals of law of parliamentary origin which could not be taken up in the course of the Ordinary Session.
The sittings of the National Assembly are public.
The complete record of the debates in public sittings is published in the Journal Officiel.
However, the National Assembly can meet in closed sittings according to the modalities provided for by the Internal Regulations.
The Law of Finance of the year is considered in the course of the second ordinary Session, called the Budgetary Session.
Article 52
The National Assembly can be reunited in extraordinary session on a specific agenda at the demand of the President of the Republic, of the President of the National Assembly or at the demand of the absolute majority of the Deputies.
The duration of an extraordinary session may not exceed fifteen days. The National Assembly recesses once the agenda is exhausted.
Article 53
The President of the National Assembly is elected for the duration of the legislature.
Article 54
The National Assembly establishes its internal regulations. The internal regulations determine:
- the composition, and the rules of functioning of the Bureau as well as the powers and prerogatives of its President;
the number, mode of designation, the composition, the role and the competence of its permanent commissions, as well as that of those which are special and temporary; the creation of parliamentary commissions of inquiry within the framework of the control of the action of the Government; the procedure of interpellation of the Government; the regime of discipline of the Deputies; the organization of the administrative services placed under the authority of the President of the National Assembly, assisted by an Administrative Secretary General; the different modes of the ballot, with the exception of those expressly specified in this Constitution; in a general manner, all the rules having for their object the functioning of the National Assembly within the framework of its constitutional competence.
