ISLAMABAD: The Senate’s Standing Committee on Law and Justice during its meeting on Tuesday asked the Law Division to check the composition of the Council of Common Interests from the 1990s till date to examine which ministers were usually part of the CCI and to which provinces they belonged.
This was suggested while the committee was discussing the Constitutional Amendment Bill, 2017 by senators Murtaza Wahab and Saleem Mandviwala.
The meeting was held under the chairmanship of Senator Javed Abbasi here at the Parliament House and was attended among others by senators Farooq Naek, Mohsin Leghari, Muhammad Ali Saif and Murtaza Wahab.
The bill under discussion seeks an amendment to Article 153 asking that the members nominated by the prime minister shall be one from each province other than the province from where the prime minister was elected as a member of the National Assembly.
During the discussion, the members suggested that instead of three members from the federal government there needed to be four, so that there was a representative from every province as the prime minister did not represent a province but the whole country. The bill would be further discussed during the next meeting.
Two constitutional amendment bills, 2017 by Senator Mohsin Leghari seeking insertion of new Articles 95A and 136A were not accepted by the committee about how the functionality of federal government and provincial governments will be in case of death of the head of government or the office becoming vacant by any other reason.
