In context of the community dialogue for an active civil society

AlMahrousa and Partners For Transparency organize a meeting for development experts

 

Partners For Transparency organized in cooperation with AlMahrousa center for socio-economic center a seminar for experts, consultants and service providers for civil society, in the framework of the community dialogue for an active civil society project implemented by AlMahrousa, on Saturday, 21^st of October 2017.

The meeting gathered 15 experts and consultants, and aimed at getting familiar with the participants points of views in the new NGOs Law number 70 of 2017, their evaluation to the law’s impact on the services they provide to the organizations, their recommendations linked to the executive bylaws and articles that could be amended during the coming period.

The participants believed that the law should set boundaries between NGOs and other legal forms such as companies, while putting measures that could open the door for abuses in the application of law on other entities registered according to the law, they pointed out the second and fourth articles of the law issuing articles, and article 27 of the law permitting the administrative entities to have the right to monitor the activity of any entities practicing work that could enter in the field of NGOs work.

The participants expressed their concerns of the imposed restrictions on some activities practiced by NGOs, as they often hire organizations with consultative offices to be implemented such as field studies, research, and public opinion surveys, the activities prohibited by article 14 of the law without a prior approval of the apparatus.

The participants recommended the necessity to specify and explain of the apparatus and administrative body roles by the bylaws, defining the terms and phrases that could be understood in many ways, and providing training for the administrative body workers on how to implement the law to prevent and abuse or misunderstanding in the application.

Te participants recommended legal amendments to be entered on the law on the mid-term led by reconsidering the decided punishments on transferring the headquarters without notifying the administrative body, and reconsidering the in-between periods linked to approving or refusing projects.