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MOGADISHU, 26 October 2026 Separating Somali lawmakers from the cabinet now would create a constitutional vacuum, because the posts they leave cannot be filled until a new law on the structure of government is passed, Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister Hassan Moalim said on Sunday.
Somalia’s new constitution, which took effect on 14 April, bars members of the cabinet from also holding parliamentary seats. A six-month transition period ended on 14 Oct. Under the provisions, officials who hold both posts must give up one of them. The change could affect 44 ministers who hold parliamentary seats: 16 ministers, 13 state ministers and 15 deputy ministers.
Speaking on the Miizaan Podcast, aired by Dawan Media, Moalim said ministers who are lawmakers would return to parliament if they left their cabinet posts. Because a large number of ministers sit in parliament, he said, their departure would leave a vacuum in the government.
“You cannot fill them the way you brought them in, because the constitution has changed from the one under which you brought them in,” Moalim said.
He said the constitution requires a law on the structure of the government before the posts can be filled, and that no such law exists. The law must set the size of the cabinet, which he said had previously been decided as needed without any legal basis. It must also define the duties of each ministry.
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Without that law, Moalim said, the vacuum could last two, three or four months and would amount to a constitutional vacuum that could cause instability.
“The law does not allow it, and the country and the constitution do not allow it,” he said. He said the government must first bring forward the law before the separation could be carried out.
Moalim said the last such law in the country was based on the 1962 constitution, and the new constitution required a new one.
He said the government could complete a draft within a month, after which both houses of parliament would follow their own procedures to pass it. The cabinet on 13 Oct gave a ministerial committee two months to draft the bill, which would set the size and duties of the cabinet.