Speaker D. Demberel has asked Parliament to discuss today
the Prosecutor General’s demand for the dismissal of the Chief and the Deputy
Chief of the Anti-Corruption Authority (ACA), after a plenary session yesterday
had refused to do so. The MPs took the decision by secret vote and the result
was announced to media without any more details.

The DP group in Parliament has criticized the secret vote,
saying it violated the rules of Parliamentary procedure and that the decision
was meant only to delay taking a decision on the Prosecutor General’s request.
This was sent on June 29 and the law says a decision should have been taken
within 14 days. MPs, however, have managed to drag the matter on for this long.

The deputy head of the DP group, L.Gantomor, has said
secret voting applied only when Parliament discussed the dismissal of one of
its members, and not to those appointed by it like Ch.Sangaragchaa, the ACA
head. He has supported the Speaker’s directive that the issue be discussed
today.

B.Bat-Erdene, who happens to be head of the Standing
Committee on Justice, however, defended the secret vote by saying it was the
members’ prerogative to choose how any issue would be decided.

The Speaker took the decision to refer the issue back to
Parliament after receiving the opinion of the Parliament Office lawyer
N.Nasanjargal. She said no special rules could be applied to this case and it
should be discussed and voted upon openly. She said she had sought the views of
several lawyer MPs and they agreed with this.