NA okays 17th Amendment: ARD, allies boycott vote
ISLAMABAD, Dec 29: The National Assembly on Monday passed the 17th constitutional amendment bill with more than a two-thirds majority in a move to effectively legitimize President Pervez Musharraf’s decrees and powers.
The bill was approved by 248 of the 342-member lower house with no vote in opposition in a ballot that was boycotted by the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) and its allies.
The final vote in the National Assembly came at the end of a heated four-day debate that was marred by an overnight walkout by the ARD and its allies who refused to return even after the house met on Monday for the final and third reading of the bill, which was piloted by Minister of State for Law and Parliamentary Affairs Raza Hayat Hiraj.
To become effective, the bill, which largely endorses President Musharraf’s Legal Framework Order, must be passed by a two-thirds majority also by the 100-seat Senate, which began a new session on Monday morning at 9.30am to continue its debate on the legislation.
Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Jamali and MMA leaders hailed the lower house vote as a success of democracy after a government-MMA deal that was denounced by the ARD as a sellout by the religious parties after 13 months of a joint opposition protest movement inside and outside parliament against the LFO.
While MMA insisted that it remained part of the opposition even after the deal on the LFO, the ARD and its allies said they were the “genuine opposition” and called the religious parties alliance only a “loyal opposition”.
SALIENT FEATURES: Among salient features of the bill are its endorsement of the LFO-inserted article 58(2)(b) of the Constitution that gives the president powers to sack a prime minister and dissolve the National Assembly, provides for a vote of confidence to be taken by President Musharraf from parliament and the four provincial assemblies and allows him to remain army chief for one more year.
The MMA won concessions in return for its decision to end the anti-LFO protest, support the bill and not to oppose the president in the vote of confidence, which will be regarded as a “further affirmation” of his being in office he is holding as a consequence of last year’s referendum that opposition parties had rejected.
But the bill largely retained the president powers seen by other opposition parties as a negation of parliamentary system of government.
One concession provides that in case of dissolution of the National Assembly or of a provincial assembly by the provincial governor, a reference will be made to the Supreme Court for a decision about the justification of the action.
The bill cancels extension in the period of service given by the president to judges of the Supreme Court and the four provincial high courts last year and restores the previous retirement age of 65 (instead of 68) years for a Supreme Court Judge and 62 (instead of 65) for a high court judge.
The LFO-inserted provision for a military-civilian National Security Council (NSC) has been deleted after the government and the MMA committed in their deal to create such a consultative body through an act of parliament.
The bill also provides that while the president would use the previously prime ministerial powers of appointing armed forces chiefs in his discretion, it would be done “in consultation with the prime minister”.
Provisions about the creation of local bodies would be taken out of the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution so that they could be amended by provincial legislatures without presidential approval.
The bill also affirms and validates all other decrees contained in the LFO and actions taken and laws made after Gen Musharraf assumed power in October 12.
HISTORY REPEATED: The bill’s passage was throwback of a similar package passed by the National Assembly in 1985 that indemnified actions of then president Gen Ziaul Haq and introduced article 58(2)(b) in the then revived Constitution.
Mr Nawaz Sharif got that article repealed by parliament in 1997.
Members of the ruling coalition, many of them former colleagues of Mr Sharif, and MMA walked together to the “ayes” lobby to register their vote in favour of the new bill while nobody went to the opposition’s “nays” lobby.
JAMALI LOOKS TO FUTURE: In his speech after the bill’s passage, Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali thanked the MMA for fulfilling its commitment to support the move after “a long journey”.
He said he never lost hope even after intermittent deadlocks in the negotiations, and sought divine help by visiting the Holy Kaaba for “recharging (spiritual) batteries”, adopted the path of flexibility and tried to act as a bridge between the opposition and the presidency.
The prime minister said the past must be left behind and both the government and the opposition should think about the future of Pakistan as two wheels of democracy.
However, the prime minister seemed bitter about “people” who denounced article 58(2)(b) after supporting it at one time and even tried to become interim prime ministers to replace the sacked ones.
MMA STANCE: Before the final vote through a division, MMA’s Liaquat Baloch made a lengthy speech to justify his alliance’s support for the bill, which he said had in effect sought to make whole of the LFO part of the Constitution with amendments.
“There has been no (secret) deal between the government and the MMA, nor is there anything behind the curtain,” he said in a rebuttal of opposition charges of compromising on the joint opposition stand that the LFO could not become part of the Constitution before a parliamentary approval. “Whatever has happened is before the house.”
“This is a historic success and at this stage a compromise has been made to take the country forward,” he said.
Mr Baloch particularly defended the MMA’s support for article 58(2)(b) that he saw as a means to avoid future political crises and said: “This is no ideal situation, but a way has been found to take the country out of a crisis.”
CONSTITUTION REVIEW COMMITTEE: Before the voting, the ARD-less house unanimously passed a resolution moved by PML-Q President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, urging the prime minister to form a 12-member committee in consultation with the speaker National Assembly, Senate chairman and leader of the opposition to study the Constitution for any future amendments.
MMA parliamentary leader Qazi Hussain Ahmed supported the move, saying it was needed because President Musharraf had changed the shape of the Constitution, but sought an assurance from the ruling party that Islamic provisions and the Hudood laws enforced by former president Gen Ziaul Haq would not be touched.
“There can be no second opinion about it,” the PML-Q chief said to reassure the MMA leader.
The assembly was prorogued by a presidential order after Information and Broadcasting Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed and some other members also congratulated the house on the bill’s passage.