March 2010
The Spring session of Parliament has a list of 27 draft laws on its agenda, prioritised from among 100 such drafts, on the basis of their relative importance. The numbers by themselves show how badly Mongolia needs a stable environment of well-made laws. Not merely do we need laws in several new areas, it is also imperative that their quality is good and reliable enough to allow State policy to be coordinated with and woven around them. Our MPs have to understand that quality and quantity go together in their legislative duties.
It is almost always the practice of the Mongolian Parliament to discuss and pass some new draft laws seemingly in a hurry. They are usually not on the pre-announced agenda but are taken up for consideration on an urgent basis, though the urgency may often not be apparent. It is believed that the way some MPs work is like a trade-off. They say to each other, “If you support my draft law to be put up for consideration and then vote for it, I shall do the same for one of yours.” This is known as lobbying, an approved parliamentary practice, but making a regular habit of it has meant that many of these laws are found inadequate or flawed soon after implementation, and have to be amended.
The MMJ is offering a series of articles on a law which has been encountering similar problems in its implementation stage, after being discussed and approved almost under duress in the dying days of the last session. This is the law on prohibiting exploration and extraction activity near forests, river basins and water sources. It was meant to be a big step in protecting the environment but as it begins to be put in practice, it is becoming clear that actually the law, as it stands, contains a loophole that opens the way to dangerous environmental destruction. The vacuum created by the legal ban is leading artisanal miners to increase their numbers exponentially and there seems to be no territory where their scavenging tentacles are not reaching. The present issue tells readers how the gold rush army is buzzing like bees in the taiga region of Khuvsgul province, in western Mongolia. Coming issues will give more pictures of their depredations in Khuvsgul and the perspective of analysts who discuss what is wrong withthe well-meant but ill-formulated law.
The Spring session will also be discussing a major policy document on the development of the Tavan Tolgoi coal deposit if, as is widely expected, the Government finally submits it to Parliament. Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy D.Zorigt set the ball rolling with his declaration early in the year that 2010 is to see whether Mongolia will“adopt a sustainable legal environment in the mineral sector, and will amend the existing Mineral Law”. He also indicated that “the status of different sectors related to mining will be discussed, especially how they should be developed in the light of practices elsewhere”. The biggest task before our policymakers this year is to determine the right approach to ensure that the mining sector impacts the economy of the country positively. Groups set up by Parliament and the Government are visiting countries with highly developed mining industries to study their experience. One of these groups was in Australia and the April issue will carry its members’ wide-ranging impressions of the impact the mining sector has had on the economy there.