Sudan parties at odds over peace plan implementation; legal action threatened News
Sudan parties at odds over peace plan implementation; legal action threatened

[JURIST] The Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SLPM) [FAS backgrounder] has threatened to take their northern counterpart, the National Congress Party (NCP) [Wikipedia backgrounder], to constitutional court if they fail to follow through on a peace deal enacted last year which ended Africa's longest civil war in southern Sudan [JURIST news archive] and established a coalition government. The southern party, SLPM, claims that the north has been reluctant to implement the deal. Yasir Aman, head of the SPLM, said that if the NCP attempts to force provisional orders through parliament without consultation, the SLPM will vote against all presidential decrees enacted before the coalition, including the Armed Forces Act and the nation's current NGO legislation, both of which have faced international criticism from the United Nations. The NCP currently occupies 52 percent of the government's 450-seat legislation and the SPLM occupies 28 percent of the seats. A vote of only 50 percent is required to pass a presidential decree, but the NCP cannot use its majority to force laws through parliament. Sudan has also come under criticism from the African Union, which recently denied [JURIST report] President Omar Hassan Ahmed Al-Bashier [official profile] the chairmanship of the Union, citing human rights abuses in the country's Darfur [JURIST news archive] region. Reuters has more.