The National Assembly (NA) Standing Committee on Law and Justice on Thursday failed to reach consensus on the long-awaited national accountability law with some members recommending the committee to refer the bill to parliament. No consensus could be evolved on certain clauses of the bill despite several meetings of the committee as members, mainly belonging to the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), held divergent views on the issue, causing delay in the passage of the bill.
During the meeting, the PML-N side complained about the non-serious attitude of the government towards the accountability law. PML-N MNA Anusha Rahman Khan pointed out that the government’s sluggish attitude on this very law could be gauged from the fact that the committee could not even discuss its own report since October when it was first presented.
She said the original draft of the bill was not substantive to make the accountability system stronger and effective, which compelled the PML-N to come up with dissenting notes. Saira Afzal Tarar of the PML-N said, “Bad intention of the government is obvious from the delay being caused from its side to go for this key legislation.” She suggested that if the government and opposition could not reach a consensus, the standing committee should give its decision as both sides would not be able to come to an agreement.
Committee Chairwoman Begum Nasim Akhtar Chaudhry of the PPP, while responding to the observations of the PML-N side, said it was unfair to blame the government alone as the delay had also been caused by the non-responsive attitude of the PML-N. “I have tried to contact opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan in the NA as well as Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif on several occasions but to no avail,” she said.
Nasim said the government wanted to take the opposition on board on this particular bill, however, it had slowed down its efforts after the PML-N submitted its dissenting notes, as, under its policy, it wanted to pass the bill without any such notes. PPP’s MNA Tariq Shabbir also urged the committee for on early completion of the task related to the accountability bill as delay in this regard had been bringing a bad name to the party.
PPP leader Abdul Ghafoor Chaudhry proposed that the bill with dissenting notes should be sent to parliament and his stance was also supported by SA Iqbal Qadri of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement. Earlier, the standing committee had adopted the Criminal Law (amendment) Bill 2011, seeking death or life imprisonment and fine for “robbery to death” crime. It also approved the Islamabad High Court (amendment) Bill envisaging increase in pecuniary jurisdiction of the high court from Rs 10 million to Rs 100 million.
The committee deferred the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2008 which pertained to penalty for obnoxious telephone calls and the Representation of the People (Amendment) Bill, 2010 putting a bar on dual nationality-holders from holding public offices.
