Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - The Senate on Thursday agreed to impose a jail punishment, fines, or both on officials who fail to present their financial disclosures.

During the Senate session today which deliberated on the Illicit Fortunes draft bill, Senator Abdul Ra'ouf Rawabdeh criticized the Senate committee's decision to propose scrapping the jail time punishment for officials who do not disclose their finances upon appointment.

Rawabdeh called on the Senate to approve the government's proposal to impose either a jail sentence or a fine, or both punishments, for violating officials.

He noted that many officials appointed since 2006 never presented their financial disclosures and were not reprimanded for violating the regulation.

"Imposing a fine is not enough, because those who embezzled millions are not unable to pay a mere JD 1,000 fine," Rawabdeh said during the session.

The Senate committee had recommended scrapping the jail sentence clause against officials who do not present their financial disclosure and impose only a minimum JD 1,000 fine.

The Senate nonetheless voted to include both the jail term (a maximum of 6 months) and the fine (a minimum of JD 1,000), or both during its deliberations on the illicit fortunes bill on Thursday.

The Senate returned the draft illicit fortunes bill to the Lower House of Parliament, after it amended some of its clauses and rejected a clause proposed by the Lower House to apply the law retroactively.

The upper house of parliament also decided to scrap the sentence "min ayna laka hatha" (Where did you get this from) from the title of the draft law, as proposed by the Lower House, which endorsed the draft bill earlier in the week.

The Senate justified its decision to refuse the retroactive imposition of the law because it contradicts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ratified by Jordan, and violates citizens' rights guaranteed in the constitution.

The Senate's legal committee noted that corruption crimes committed before the illicit fortunes law goes into effect are incriminated and covered by other effective current penal laws.

The Lower House of Parliament had endorsed the draft law as it was received from the government, amending some of its articles including adding the clause to the name of the law.

The Senate is expected to deliberate in its next session on the Public Institutions Restructuring Law, which was recently endorsed by the Lower House.