ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly on the opening day of its new session on Monday witnessed a legal and technical debate on the issue of government’s powers to bypass parliament and make changes in the country’s tax laws through a presidential ordinance after the opposition protested over the recently promulgated Tax Laws (Second Amendment) Ordi­nance 2021, terming it unconstitutional and a breach of the parliament’s privilege.

While the opposition lawmakers asked the government to immediately withdraw the ordinance, a number of cabinet members defended the law, saying it has done nothing unconstitutional and that the opposition members are wrongly interpreting Article 73 of the Constitution which states that “a money bill shall only be originated in the National Assembly”.

It was after listening to the arguments from both sides and even giving his ruling in favour of the government that Speaker Asad Qaiser later invited legal experts from both the government and opposition sides to have further deliberation on the matter, declaring that he will not let the Constitution be violated.

Also protesting over convening of the assembly session in haste and at a time when the country had been witnessing a surge in Covid-19 cases, the opposition later successfully foiled the government’s attempt to present three resolutions seeking extension of another 120 days for the three ordinances which are set to lapse in the first week of April.

As soon as Adviser to the Prime Minister on Parliamentary Affairs Babar Awan presented the resolution seeking a 120-day extension in the life of the Special Technology Zones Authority Ordinance 2020 (XIII of 2020) which is set to lapse on April 1, the opposition members staged a walkout from the house, leaving behind Agha Rafiullah of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) to point out lack of quorum.

After finding that the house was clearly lacking quorum, for which the presence of one-fourth (86 members) of the 342-memner house is required, the speaker first suspended the proceedings for 35 minutes and then finally adjourned the sitting till Thursday afternoon when the government failed to complete the quorum with one member short.

The Pakistan Telecommunication (Re-Organisation) (Amendment) Ordinance 2020 is due to expire on April 2, whereas the Employees’ Old-Age Benefits (Amendment) Ordinance 2020 will lapse on April 8.

At the outset of the sitting, PPP’s Raja Pervez Ashraf, while speaking on a point of order, lodged protest over more than an hour delay in the start of the proceedings and also over the government’s move to convene the session at a time when Islamabad was witnessing the highest-ever positivity rate of Covid-19 cases.

On the one hand, he said, the government was banning all types of indoor and outdoor gatherings and imposing restrictions and, on the other hand, it had called the assembly on one day notice merely to meet the constitutional requirement of holding the sessions for 130 days in a parliamentary year.

Mr Ashraf said there was nothing important in the agenda items which could justify the government’s act of convening the session at the pandemic time. He said the government had been boasting about its steps to curb the pandemic for over a year but all its tall claims now stood exposed as the people were not finding beds and ventilators in the hospitals of even Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

Ahsan Iqbal of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) blasted the government for making changes in taxes worth over Rs700 billion through a presidential ordinance. Reading out Article 73 of the Constitution, Mr Iqbal said the money bill “shall originate from the National Assembly”, adding that the president or any other institution had no powers to make changes in the tax laws.

Mr Iqbal said that through the ordinance, the government had withdrawn incentives announced for a number of sectors, besides giving powers to the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority to increase tariff unilaterally. He also declared that his party would oppose the government’s move to make the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) a “subsidiary of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)” through another controversial bill which, he said, the federal cabinet had already approved.

“Imposition of taxes through ordinances from the Presidency is an insult to the whole house,” said Mr Iqbal, who had served as the planning and development minister in the previous PML-N government. He asked the speaker to take notice of the development being custodian of the house. He also asked the chair to give a ruling on the matter.

The house witnessed a rumpus for a brief time when Minister for Industries Hammad Azhar, who was later in the evening given the charge of the Ministry of Finance and Revenue in place of Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, instead of defending the government’s act of promulgating the ordinance as usual started criticising the previous governments of making such changes in taxes through SROs (Statutory Regulatory Orders) in the name of tax reforms.

Realising that the situation could go out of control, the speaker immediately gave floor to PM’s adviser Babar Awan to clarify the government’s stance on the matter. He said this ordinance would be laid before the assembly in the form of a money bill, adding that the Constitution did not bar the president from issuing ordinance on any specific subject. He invited the opposition to help the government in carrying out legal, judicial and electoral reforms in the country.

It was after failure of the two cabinet members to satisfy the opposition that Human Rights Minister Dr Shireen Mazari came up with her own interpretation of Article 73, stating that it stressed that the money bill could only originate in the assembly and not in the Senate.

The speaker first gave the ruling that the government had the powers to promulgate all types of ordinance, but later showed his intention to form a joint government-opposition committee on the matter when Raja Pervez Ashraf and former speaker Ayaz Sadiq requested him to take time and not give any ruling without hearing the legal arguments.

Meanwhile, the speaker condemned the killing of four youths in the Jani Khel area of Bannu and directed Adviser to the PM on Interior Arbab Shahzad to seek report on the incident from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government. The issue was raised by Zahid Durrani of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) and independent MNA Mohsin Dawar.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2021