ISLAMABAD: The main opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has accused the government of committing contempt of court by introducing legislation in parliament through an unelected adviser.

Speaking at a news conference at National Press Club here on Wednesday, PML-N MNA Mohsin Nawaz Ranjha particularly referred to the recently introduced Elections (Amendment) Bill 2020 by Adviser to the Prime Minister on Parliamentary Affairs Babar Awan and termed the bill “unconstitutional and illegal”.

Mr Ranjha addressed the news conference hours after his party’s MNA Chuadhry Bashir Mehmood Virk raised the same objection during a meeting of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Parliamentary Affairs that had been convened to take up the bills related to the election laws.

Mr Ranjha said the Islamabad High Court had in its decision in the case of Abdul Hafeez Shaikh declared that special assistants to the prime minister (SAPMs) and advisers could not officiate as federal ministers and they were given the status of ministers only to enjoy perks and privileges.

Govt accused of committing contempt of court by doing legislation through unelected adviser

The PML-N lawmaker was of the view that Mr Awan could not sign the “Objects and Reasons” section of the government bills in the light of the court’s verdict and all those bills that had been tabled by the adviser were unconstitutional and illegal.

Moreover, he said, other SAPMs and advisers who were enjoying official protocols and signing official documents were also committing contempt of the court. He said that since the charge of the minister in-charge of parliamentary affairs was with the prime minister, he should sign the government bills, and not the adviser.

The PML-N MNA said that according to the court’s verdict, the role of an adviser or SAPM was only to give advice to the government and not taking crucial decisions and signing official documents.

“We will have to decide whether we want to run the country in accordance with the Constitution or do we want to make Pakistan a laughing stock,” Mr Ranjha said, alleging that the government had failed to run parliament in accordance with the Constitution.

Going back to the history, he said that in the original 1973 Constitution, there was no concept of advisers or special assistants to the prime minister and these provisions were included in the Constitution by Gen Ziaul Haq’s military regime in the late 1970s and in 1985. He said the Constitution clearly stated that the affairs of the state would only be run through elected representatives of the people.

He said the opposition parties in their recent meeting of the Pakistan Democratic Movement had decided to move a resolution in the National Assembly, asking the speaker to constitute a parliamentary committee comprising MNAs and senators to discuss the election reforms to make the future elections transparent and non-controversial. He said legislation on such an important issue like elections could not be done without taking the stakeholders into confidence. Such bills, he said, could not be drafted while sitting in a room, adding that if the government continued with the same attitude, the opposition would not support any legislation in the parliament.

Asked why on one hand the opposition was not ready to hold dialogue with the government and, on the other, it wanted formation of a parliamentary committee through the National Assembly speaker, Mr Ranjha said election was a serious issue and they were ready to discuss it irrespective of who was ruling the country as it was necessary to end the culture of rigging allegations after every election.

Earlier, during the meeting of the NA standing committee, PML-N’s Bashir Virk said that since Babar Awan was an adviser to the prime minister, he had no capacity to move the bill. He said only a minister, as defined in the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the National Assembly, had the capacity to move a government bill. The PML-N MNA also submitted his contentions in writing to the committee.

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2021