ISLAMABAD: As the controversy regarding the mad­rassah registration bill refuses to die down, a joint session of parliament will be convened in the upcoming week to possibly take up the Societies Registra­tion (Amend­ment) Bill 2024, which, after its passage by both houses of parliament, was returned by the president with ‘objections’.

Sources in the National Assembly Secretariat told Dawn that the summary had been prepared to call the joint session on Dec 17, and the date had been finalised after consultations with the JUI-F leadership, currently unhappy with how the abovementioned piece of legislation was being handled.

A day earlier, President Asif Ali Zardari cautioned parliamentarians to consider international obligations before altering the existing procedures for registering seminaries. This objection was met with severe criticism by JUI-F leader Hafiz Hamdullah, who took exception to the objections made by the president.

Mr Hamdullah, in a post on social media, challenged President Zardari’s competence and even stated that parliament was actually ‘operated’ by the Financial Action Task Force — a global anti-terror watchdog.

Information Minister Attaullah Tarar responded that the objections raised by the president on the seminaries bill were legal and constitutional. Though banned in the country by the government, the information minister took to ‘X’ to answer Hafiz Hamdullah’s post, saying there was no mention of FATF in the objections. “Linking the registration of madressahs to FATF is tantamount to idle imagination and speculation,” Mr Tarar wrote, adding that playing politics on legal and constitutional matters was not in anyone’s interest.

The procedure for making laws was clear in the Constitution and the president had raised constitutional objections, the minister said, adding that parliament was the only forum which could address these objections. “Unnecessary rhetoric and criticism for the sake of criticism on this issue should be avoided,” Mr Tarar asked Hafiz Hamdullah.

However, the JUI-F upped the ante against the president, alleging that he had insulted the Constitution, democracy, parliament, and the nation by not signing the seminaries bill under ‘external pressures’.

JUI-F spokesman Aslam Ghauri said the president had admitted that the country’s freedom had been mortgaged to foreign powers ‘for a few dollars’.

Mr Ghauri said if President Zardari cannot bear the pressure, then he should step down with dignity.

The JUI-F has said that the history of PPP’s sacrifices for democracy were being distorted, and threatened that if their just rights were not granted through constitutional and democratic means, the party would take other routes and launch protests to protect its rights.

Published in Dawn, December 15th, 2024