The crisis is over at lest for the time being
It came as a shock to Nawaz Sharif when told last year by the Supreme Court that he could not take decisions on his own because the power to do so vested with the cabinet. This led him to hold cabinet meetings which had so far been convened infrequently. Sharif however continues to give little importance to Parliament as usual. After the 2013 elections the government delayed the formation of the parliamentary committees which consequently remained non-functional for over six months. As the Prime Minister rarely attended the National Assembly sittings, the federal ministers and ruling party MNAs too dodged the meetings leading to frequent complaints of the lack of quorum. This was to promote the tendency in the PTI to take the fight to the streets rather than get the outstanding issues resolved in the lower house.
The PM and cabinet members have treated the Senate even more carelessly. The last time the PM came to the Senate was in January 2015. This happened in disregard of a resolution by the Senate amending its rules and making it binding upon Sharif to attend at least one sitting of the Senate during every session. Fed up with again and again issuing notices to the ministers to attend the Senate meetings to answer the questions related to their ministries, the Senate Chairman adjourned the ongoing session sine die on Friday. He also offered to resign if the government so desired but insisted on ensuring the prestige and privilege of the House of Federation. This seems to have jolted the government which is already under stress on account of the pending Supreme Court verdict on Panamagate scandal.
After a series of several meetings with Ishaq Dar, Raza Rabbani has managed to wring a categorical assurance on the part of the PM that henceforth the ministers would attend the sittings of the upper house to share information when called. It remains to be seen if the government would accord upper house the respect that it deserves in a federation. The matter might one day land in the Supreme Court as usual.
