PML-N parliamentarians strongly protested on Thursday over what they saw as continuing delaying tactics being used by the National Assembly Standing Committee on Law Chairwoman Nasim Akhtar Chaudhary to block the passage of the new accountability bill and skip debate on the bill’s contents and the PML-N dissenting note on the issue, with PML-N’s Anusha Rehman labeling the chairwoman a ‘dictator’.
As expected, the Standing Committee on Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs was again unable to achieve a breakthrough on the bill when the chairwoman abruptly called off the meeting as the PML-N members wanted to speak on it.
The committee took up the note of dissent submitted by the PML-N members on the new accountability law towards the end of the proceedings despite the fact that the PML-N members insisted that the matter should be taken up per the agenda.
The PPP and PML-N are at odds over some of the clauses of the bill for the last over two years and around 40 meetings of the committee have failed in resolving the controversy so far.
One of the major defects in the proposed bill in the eyes of the PML-N is that the bill was not retrospective and therefore provides amnesty to all former holders of public offices (HOPO).
The Nawaz-led party also objected to the definition of HOPO as it applied to only politicians and excluded all bureaucrats, office-holders of local bodies and members of armed forces from the definition.
The third PML-N note of dissent objected to the definition of “Corruption and Corrupt Practices”. It believed that the bill had a very narrow definition of “Corruption and Corrupt Practices”, excluding even ownership of assets disproportionate to known sources of income.
The PML-N said the bill included a scandalous provision that an HOPO could not be prosecuted after three years of the expiry of his term in office. It also objected to the punishment for the offence which was reduced from the current 14 years of imprisonment to seven years. The PML-N and the PPP are also in controversy over the appointment of head of the accountability commission. The PML-N said the chairman should be a serving judge of the Supreme Court while the PPP was of the opinion that anybody eligible to be a judge of the Supreme Court could be appointed as its head.
As the PML-N wanted discussion over its note of dissent, the chairwoman said one of the committee members, Ejaz Virk through a message, had requested deferment of the debate as he wanted to give his ‘worthy’ views on the issue and later abruptly adjourned the meeting, telling PPP parliamentarian Ghafoor Chaudhry that he had to attend a funeral ceremony, leaving the PML-N members ‘mourning’ the decision.
