ISLAMABAD: Two days after the government invoked advisory jurisdiction of the Supreme Court over open voting for Senate polls, the Pakistan Peoples Party has warned the government against any unconstitutional move.

“Under the garb of so-called transparency of the vote, the federal government wants to destroy the pith of the Senate which is enshrined in Article 59 of the Constitution requiring it to hold Senate elections on the basis of proportional representation and a single transferable vote,” PPP leader and former chairman of Senate Mian Raza Rabbani said on Friday.

Talking to reporters here, he said that doing away with this principle would deprive the nationalist and religious parties of being a part of the federation.

“As the federal government does not enjoy majority in the parliament to amend the Constitution, therefore, it is trying to hide behind the cloak of the Supreme Court. Article 186 of the Constitution cannot be and is not a substitute to Articles 238 and 239 which provide the procedure for an amendment to the Constitution, 1973,” he said.

He observed that the mention of the Committee of the Whole in the presidential reference was an attempt to mislead the Supreme Court. He pointed out that the report of the Committee of the Whole, which was unanimously passed by the Senate, spoke of constitutional amendment.

The Committee of the Whole of the Senate was the first to take cognisance of the question of transparency in Senate elections and, therefore, after a detailed debate it suggested the concept of a ‘traceable vote’.

“This concept will preserve the essence of the clause (2), Article 59 of the Constitution, 1973, inasmuch as, that the concept of ‘single transferable vote’ would remain and all shades of political opinion represented in the provinces would get representation in the house of the federation thus becoming a part of the federation’s mainstream,” he said.

Mr Rabbani said that denial of representation to the nationalist and religious parties would not only alter the face of the Constitution, but will also increase political polarisation in the country.

President Dr Arif Alvi on Wednesday approached the Supreme Court to seek its opinion on whether the condition of secret ballot under Article 226 of the Constitution applied to Senate elections.

On Dec 15, the federal cabinet had decided to invoke advisory jurisdiction of the Supreme Court on open voting for Senate polls.

NFC: In reply to a question about National Finance Commission, the former chairman of Senate rejected as illogical the federal cabinet’s decision to devise a mechanism to hold provinces accountable for how they spend money under the NFC Award.

“The federal government, despite the passage of 18th Amendment, has failed to reduce its expenditures and size, despite devolution of major functions i.e. 17 federal ministries to federating units,” he regretted.

The government, he said, had failed to control foreign loans which he said had surged by 45 per cent in five months of the current financial year and it had failed to boost tax revenues or reduce its own current expenditures.

He said the federal government had failed to realise that federal taxes were collected from the jurisdiction of the provinces with their consent and part of these funds was transferred to them under a constitutional scheme.

The provinces, he said, regulated their financial expenditures through their provincial assemblies and such a move meant the federal government wanted to control the functioning of provincial assemblies from Islamabad.

He said the provinces wanted to know from the federal government as to how there was a sugar crisis, wheat crisis and petroleum crisis. All of these crises had burdened the federal expenditures with the loss running into billions of rupees.

“It is the right of the provinces to question the federal government on this loss. The federal government must realise that playing with provisions of the Constitution pertaining to the NFC and/or reducing or trying to control the spending of the provinces which, according to the Constitution, is their prerogative, can give rise to extremist slogans wherein, the provinces can demand the right to collect all taxes and ask the federal government to submit its budget for approval and disbursement by the provinces,” he said.

Published in Dawn, December 26th, 2020