Bahrain Mirror: Bahrain's Council of Representatives is scheduled to discuss during its Tuesday session (January 10, 2017), a proposal law requiring that 10 years pass after someone has attained the Bahraini nationality, before receiving housing services, especially housing units. Meanwhile, the Public Utilities and Environment Committee, along with the Legal and Legislative Affairs Committee, rejected the proposal, believing it had an unconstitutional flaw.

The proposal rationale stated that it "solves the problem of accumulated housing requests; an average of 5000 annual applications, and reduces the citizen's waiting period until they receive their housing unit." It also indicated that this would also reduce the citizens' rush to commercial banks to take loans with high interest rates.

On its part, the Public Utilities and Environment Committee based its rejection to the proposal on an article in the constitution, which stated that all people are equal in human dignity, and citizens are equal before law in public rights and duties, without discrimination on grounds of sex, origin, language, religion, or doctrine". This was the same constitutional article that the Legal and Legislative Committee based its legal rejection on, stating, "The draft law proposal has an unconstitutional flaw, for contradicting Article (18) of the constitution."

Arabic Version