Ammon News - AMMAN (Petra) – The Lower House on Tuesday voted to fire MP Talal Sharif from the Kingdom's 17th parliament and also suspended lawmaker Qusai Dumaisi for one year after a scuffle that broke out while the chamber was in session debating the legislature's bylaws.

Sharif, Amman 1st District, had earlier pulled out a rifle and fired shots at Dumeisi, a deputy from Ruseifah, inside the parliament in the brawl that triggered chaotic scenes under the dome, prompting Speaker Saad Hayel Srour to adjourn the session. There were no injuries.

Srour had asked for an investigation into the incident by the House Legal Committee, which ordered the dismissal of Sharif and suspension of Dumeisi, a decision that was backed by 136 lawmakers of the 138 present during a vote.

The House also upheld the panel's suggestion to freeze the membership of any MP, "who attempts to abuse, in word or deed, or totes a weapon under the dome or in the parliament's corridors." The punishment, it said, should be proportionate to the gravity of such an offence "in order to safeguard the House’s prestige as a higher national interest, since parliament is a pillar of the three branches of power and a key part of the political, executive and monitoring body of the Jordanian state." According to the constitution, a member of the Senate or the House could only be sacked for an offence on the basis of a decision by two-thirds majority of the members of either chamber.

Srour said the dismissal was due to the seriousness of the action by Sharif – brandishing a gun and shooting from it – setting a precedent in Jordanian parliamentary life, and was based on article 90 of the constitution.

After the shooting, a royal decree was issued to incorporate such incidents into the agenda of parliament's current extraordinary session.