NA body rejects bill seeking ban on dual nationality holders from holding public office

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.