ISLAMABAD: The government’s planned constitutional amendment bill is expected to be presented for voting in the National Assembly session on Sunday (today), Geo News reported citing sources.
According to the sources, a supplementary agenda is likely to be used to introduce the bill in the NA.
As per the sources who spoke with Geo News on Saturday, the government has decided to establish a constitutional court and amend the Constitution’s Article 63-A, which focuses defection of legislators.
Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar has also echoed the same in the upper house of parliament the same day, saying the Constitutional Bill” was in line with the provisions of the Charter of Democracy (COD) endorsed by all the political parties including the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
It has been also been proposed that the retirement age of superior judges should be increased by three years.
Currently, Article 179 of the Constitution envisages that a judge of the Supreme Court shall hold office until he attains the age of 65 years, whereas Article 195 of the Constitution says that a judge of a high court shall hold office until he attains the age of 62 years.
Furthermore, the government is also mulling revising the seniority principle in the appointment of the top judge, government’s spokesperson on legal affairs Barrister Aqeel Malik confirmed while speaking on Geo News programme “Naya Pakistan on Friday.
At present, according to Article 175A of the Constitution, only the senior most judge of the Supreme Court is appointed as the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) on the basis of principle of seniority.
PML-N instructs its members to vote for amendment
On the other hand, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Parliamentary Leader in National Assembly Khawaja Asif and Parliamentary Leader in Senate Irfan-ul-Haque Siddiqui have written a letter to members of the respective houses.
They instructed all the PML-N leaders to ensure their attendance in the House and cast their vote in favour of the constitutional amendment as per the party decision.
The parliamentary leaders said it was mandatory for all the members of the parliament to ballot for the constitutional amendment.
“Hence, no member should refrain from voting,” they instructed.
Meanwhile, the NA has issued a six-point agenda for the today’s session. Two calling attention notices other than questions are part of the agenda.
A motion of thanks for President Asif Ali Zardari’s address to the joint meeting of the parliament is included in the agenda. While, the members of NA’s raising points of order are also its part.
Moreover, a federal cabinet meeting presided by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will be held at the Parliament House on Sunday, where the draft for constitutional amendment will sail through, sources told Geo News.
Whereas, an in-camera meeting of the Special Committee of the National Assembly on Constitution and Parliamentary Affairs has also been called in the Parliament House.
The sources said the NA special body meeting presided by Syed Khursheed Shah would discuss the proposed constitutional amendment bill as well.
In the meantime, the special parliamentary body has requested the NA speaker to reschedule the assembly session from 11:30am to 4pm.
Following which, the NA Secretariate has issued a notice about changing the time.
Defection clause
On the other hand, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Senator Shibli Faraz read the article 63-A of the Constitution in response to Senator Dar’s request of for the support of the legislation:
(1) If a member of a parliamentary party composed of a single political party in a House — (a) resigns from membership of his political party or joins another Parliamentary Party; or (b) votes or abstains from voting in the House contrary to any direction issued by the Parliamentary Party to which he belongs, in relations to (i) election of the Prime Minister or the Chief Minister; or (ii) a vote of confidence or a vote of no-confidence; or (iii) a Money Bill or a Constitution (Amendment) Bill;
“So it says very clearly and I rest my case,” he added.
Deputy PM Dar said this constitutional amendment did not imply earlier on the matter which was added after the 18th amendment as it was limited to three items.
“But we debated during the 18th Amendment Parliamentary Committee to add the fourth item as constitutional amendment was important to limit trampling of the party line as the party may move reference for disqualification of the said members,” he added.
For his part, Senator Farooq H Naik said the disqualification is applicable to the member on casting vote against the parliamentary party line.
“The supreme court has rewritten the Constitution in its wisdom in the Punjab government case and the review against it is pending and its violation of Article 63 as the Supreme Court cannot rewrite the Constitution and the Law but interpret the law The Court has taken over the power of the parliament and violation of the theory of separation of powers laid in the Constitution,” he said.
