The National Assembly Standing Committee on Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Tuesday rejected a bill seeking disqualification of lawmakers, who had dual nationality on the grounds that the proposed legislation would overlap the existing law on the subject. The committee considered the bill, moved by PML-N woman lawmaker Tasneem Siddiqui and rejected it with majority vote.
The PML-N MNA had moved the Pakistan Citizenship Amendment Bill 2011 in December last year as private member bill to disqualify the dual nationality holders from holding the public offices in the country. The meeting was chaired by MNA Abdul Ghafoor Chaudhry. The parliamentary body was of the view that such a law already existed according to which a Pakistani citizen having dual nationality could not be elected as MPA or MNA. “A new legislation in this regard would be tantamount to overlapping the existing laws. So it is better to dispose of it”, the majority of the members opined.
The committee also rejected Political Parties (Amendment) Bill, which was moved by PPP MNA Palwasha Khan. The bill sought reserved seats for people with Rs 25,000 monthly income as well as one million rupees worth of assets, in parliament.
The committee observed that such laws for reserved seats was not practiced anywhere so it was not appropriate to approve any piece of legislation on this subject.
The committee also took up a bill moved by PPP MNA Nasir Ali Shah regarding a limit of expenses a candidate would be allowed for contesting parliamentary elections.
The bill wanted that a candidate in the election should be made bound to inform the Election Commission of Pakistan about the actual expenses spent on contesting any particular seat of parliament. It proposed a spending limit of Rs 100,000 for a candidate of National Assembly and Rs 50,000 for provincial assemblies’ candidates. Besides it also sought complete ban on banners, hoardings and other publicity campaigns, which cost millions of rupees.
The committee will meet again today (Wednesday). PML-Q’s member of the committee Riaz Fatyana demanded early resolution of issues regarding accountability bill, pending with the standing committee since years.
The law of banning a Pakistani who is a dual national from contesting elections is totally non sense and a cruality against overeas Pakistanies.
It is a question mark for the NA of Pakistan to pass such a bill which discriminate against overseas Pakistanis who are sending billions to support Pakistani economy. This kind of Lawmakers or those who take that money back to the foreign countries through money laundering to put into their personal accounts. Developed countries attract intellectuals from third world to their countries through different schemes and Pakistani Politian detracts the talented and skilled people from Pakistan. May God bless this Country and Nation that they can understand the situations?
To be a member of parliament you must disclaim any loyalty to any foreign govt. You cannot pledge allegiance to two countries at the same time. What if those two countries are in conflict with each other? Who would yyou choose? And would you want people to wonder where your loyalties are? If you cannot give all of yourself to the country, then you have no business contesting elections and pretending that you will only be loyal and faithful to one country.
Bad idea. Bad bad idea.
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