COMMENT | Anti-hopping bill should clearly exclude switching coalition

COMMENT | The Constitutional Amendment Bill to introduce the anti-hopping law is intended to exclude coalition-hopping from the definition of party-hopping, but the newly added definition of political parties may open doors for a legal challenge. MPs should pay attention to this in the committee stage debate today.

The exclusion of coalition hopping is provided in the illustration for the new Article 49A in the explanatory statement, which reads:

“A member of Party A who is the member of the House of Representatives shall not cease to be a member of that House, if Party A, who is a member of a coalition of political parties, leaves that coalition whether or not Party A joins another coalition of political parties or forms a new coalition of parties.”

This exclusion is reasonable, although it would disappoint...