Chairman Senate Nayyer Hussain Bokhari proposed on Sunday that political forces should initiate a dialogue for direct elections for the members of senate.
In an interview with APP, he said political forces should be engaged in a dialogue to include members of the upper house in the Public Accounts Committee, though he admitted that presently the finance bill was exclusively the domain of the National Assembly which comprised of the directly-elected members. In an interview with APP, Bokhari suggested a constitution of joint standing committees of the bicameral parliament to ensure an expeditious and a unanimous legislation.
“I will shortly write to the prime minister and the president to introduce the joint standing committees of both the houses of the parliament”, he said.
He said such a system had already been experienced in India and had brought fruitful results in the form of speedy legislation within the minimum possible time.
The chairman said the National Assembly passed a bill but senate standing committees introduced some amendments in it. In such a case, the bill goes back to NA for review.
“If the joint standing committees were introduced, this practice could be ridded of,” Bokhari said.
He said during this government, record legislations had been passed in the Senate with 20 bills being passed only during last one year.
Bokhari said after passage of the 18th amendment, the working days of the senate had been increased from 90 to 110 days but the house had completed 116 sittings, which showed the commitment of the members to strengthen democracy and national institutions.
Bokhari said among the top important legislations passed by the senate included 18th amendment, NFC Award, 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd constitutional amendments and was about to take up 24th amendment. He added that the dictators had polluted the constitution in their respective regimes.
Besides, the house discussed various important issues including the law and order, took up adjournment motions and referred some matters to the standing committees as they had also functioned effectively during the current period.
He was of the view that if the annual budget was sent to parliamentary committees, these would approve it considering all pros and cons which would also nullify the impression of a rubber stamp parliament.
To a question as to why the Pakistani parliament could not yet establish its own parliamentary channel unlike other developing and developed countries, Nayyer Bokhari said only the continuity of democracy could help remove all shortcomings.
When asked whether the designs of some elements for prolonged a caretaker set up would succeed, he said ultimately everyone would have to go for elections. Exemplifying Burma, he said even after two decades of military rule, the country finally went for elections.
When questioned as to why the Parliament could not eliminate terrorism through effective legislation, he said besides legislation, there was a need to consider the regional circumstances as well. He added that terrorism was not our local product that we had been facing since 1979. Moreover, he emphasised on the unity of political forces and all other stakeholders in order to rid the country from terrorism as the use of force could never be the sole solution in this regard.
Bokhari said the incumbent Parliament worked a lot to improve inter-parliamentary ties.
“The chairperson of the Russian upper house recently visited Pakistan and said that there was a huge difference between the perception created by the media and the one created by one-on-one meetings that could be made possible only through exchange of parliamentary delegations,” he said. He said the debate that whether the parliament was supreme or the constitution would continue because in the past we could not evolve our political system. “Even in developed countries there has been a long debate over whether the church or the state was supreme,” he added.
