Senator Raza Rabbani on Friday took strong exception to the caretaker government’s reconstitution of the Cabinet Committee for Disposal of Legislative Cases (CCLC), saying that it was a “violation of the scheme of the Constitution and section 230, Election Act, 2017”.

A day earlier, interim Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar reshaped three key committees of the federal cabinet. These included the Cabinet Committee on Energy, Cabinet Committee on Chinese Investment Projects and Cabinet Committee for Disposal of Legislative Cases.

According to a notification issued by the Cabinet Secretariat, the CCLC has been reconstituted with a slightly reduced membership. To be led by the minister for law and justice, the committee would comprise ministers for information, planning, religious affairs and IT and telecom.

During the tenure of the previous government, the committee led by the law minister comprised ministers for interior, water resources, board of investment, parliamentary affairs and economic affairs.

The Attorney General for Pakistan and secretaries for cabinet division and law and justice would remain unchanged as special invitees while an additional secretary of the Prime Minister’s Office has now been added to the committee.

Surprisingly, the new committee would also be responsible for examining whether fresh legislation or amendments in the existing laws are in line with the Constitutional scheme, not in violation of any existing law, and fall within the mandate of Parliament and to examine the contents of fresh legislations and rules as well as amendments to the existing laws/rules, and give its recommendations as to whether the same is in line with the policy of the government and Constitutional and legislative scheme.

Under the terms of reference, in case the CCLC decides to amend the proposal of the sponsoring Division, from a policy perspective, and the same is agreed to by the sponsoring Division in the CCLC meeting, the amended proposal shall be placed before the Cabinet for ratification and in case of disagreement between the Sponsoring Division and CCLC on a policy matter, the points of view of both shall be placed before the Cabinet for a decision.

In a press release issued today, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, Senator Rabbani highlighted that the mandate of the caretaker government/cabinet was limited to and could not exceed day-to-day affairs and did not include the examination of laws passed by the Parliament.

“The cabinet committee consists of five federal ministers and four special invitees including the Attorney General for Pakistan.

“The committee has defined four TORs (terms of reference), one of which mandates it to look at the recently passed legislation to see if it conforms to the Constitution, is in conflict with existing laws and above all if Parliament was competent to pass them,” the PPP senator said.

The committee, he continued, had been assigned the role of the “judiciary” and an unelected government “will sit in judgment over the constitutional competence of Parliament”.

“This also raises very serious questions as to the intentions of the caretakers,” he added.

Powers and functions of the caretaker government

Under Section 230 of the 2017 Act, the caretaker government’s responsibility is to perform day-to-day administrative matters necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the government, assist the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in conducting elections in accordance with the law, restrict its activities to routine tasks that serve the public interest and can be reversed by the government elected after the elections and remain impartial toward all individuals and political parties.

However, the Pakistan Democratic Government, before its departure, amended the 2017 Election Act.

On July 26, 2023, the joint session of Parliament proposed over 54 amendments to the 2017 Act including amendments to Section 230. The amendments were proposed by the ruling PML-N, which claimed that they were necessary to protect the economic interests of Pakistan and to ensure the continuity of ongoing projects and agreements. While there was consensus on all other clauses, subclauses relating to changes in Section 230 prompted controversy and discussion in the parliament. The concerns raised by allies and opposition members led to these clauses being reviewed and re-drafted, following which the bill was passed.

According to the amended Section 230, the restrictions on the functions of the interim government would not apply whenever circumstances exist that necessitate it to take actions or decisions necessary for the protection of Pakistan’s economic interests dealing with bilateral and multilateral agreements or projects already initiated under the Public Private Partnership Authority Act 2017, the Inter-Governmental Commercial Transactions Act 2022, and the Privatisation Commission Ordinance 2000.