ISLAMABAD: In a controversial move, the Senate on Thursday extended the National Accountability (Amend­ment) Ordinance, 2023, for another 120 days.

A resolution to this effect was moved in the house by Law Minister Ahmad Irfan Aslam. Earlier, the minister laid in the Senate the National Accountability (Amendment) Ordinance, 2023, (Ordinance No. I of 2023), as required by clause (2) of Article 89 of the Constitution. The extension will take effect from October 31, 2023.

Senate Chairman Muhammad Sadiq Sanjrani, who had promulgated the ordinance in his capacity as Acting President in July, presided over the session and tactfully averted criticism of the move before adoption of resolution for the ordinance’s extension.

President Dr Arif Alvi was in Saudi Arabia when Mr Sanjrani, on the advice of former prime minister Shehbaz Sharif, had promulgated the ordinance.

NAO to remain in force for another 120 days

Under the amendments in accountability law made through the ordinance, an arrested accused can be kept on physical remand for 30 days instead of 14.

The ordinance also empowered the NAB chairman to issue arrest warrants for an accused for non-cooperation in the investigation. It also empowered the anti-graft watchdog to arrest an accused at the level of inquiry.

Raising the first objection over the move, PTI parliamentary leader in the House Senator Syed Ali Zafar wondered how the house was going to pass a resolution to extend the ordinance when the Supreme Court has declared amendments made in the NAB law unconstitutional.

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“If it is necessary to pass it, the proposed law should be sent to the committee for further examination,” he said, adding that at the lawmaking stage, he had advised that the right of appeal should not be given retrospectively against the apex court’s decisions under 184 (3) of the Constitution.

“I had suggested that it is necessary to give right to appeal but an effort to giving the same retrospectively would be set aside (by SC),” he said, adding that amendment was person-specific and an effort to open the Panama case against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. “But this law was passed in haste… the eight judges of SC said that it is not the authority of parliament to do legislation retrospectively.” Former Law Minister PML-N Senator Azam Nazeer Tarar said that Supreme Court has accepted the authority of parliament to legislate and it would continue to do so.

He said that the three-member SC bench, through a 2-1 decision, has struck down only 30 per cent sections of the NAB Amendment law. He said the present ordinance was promulgated as it was necessary to reorganise the NAB.

He also referred to an amendment in the law setting upper limit of disqualification to five years and criticised the judgement declaring Nawaz Sharif disqualified for life, saying it doesn’t happen in any part of the world.

Leader of the House Senator Ishaq Dar said many of the SC decisions taken under suo motu notices were controversial and Panama Papers case was one of them. Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) Senator Kamran Murtaza questioned the legality of ordinance’s extension.

He also called upon President Arif Alvi to resign for not giving a date of election under Article 48 of the Constitution.

“Whether he failed to understand the constitutional provision or failed to implement it, he should immediately step down,” he said. Senator Humayun Mohmand said the law ministry had sown confusion by declaring the President had no authority to give a date for election. He also called for disbanding the NAB once and for all.

Saadia Abbasi of PML-N, while terming the NAB ordinance a black law introduced by a military dictator, regretted that no democratic government had set it aside. Irfan Siddiqui, Mushahid Hussain Sayed and Manzoor Kakar also voiced their concerns over the role played by NAB in the country’s politics.

The senators questioned the transparency, efficiency and overall effectiveness of NAB’s investigations and prosecutions.

Published in Dawn, November 3rd, 2023