National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf on Tuesday deferred for a day voting on the Election (Amendment) Bill, 2023 after lawmakers from both the government and the opposition criticized the inclusion of a clause granting greater powers to caretaker governments to take “important” decisions.
The government had hoped to pass the Election (Amendment) Bill, 2023 during a joint session of Parliament but hit a snag over the last-minute addition of the controversial clause. The bill, initially passed by the National Assembly but still pending in the Senate after 90 days, came under fire after the government decided to include a long list of electoral reforms ostensibly prepared by a parliamentary committee through an amendment.
Senator Raza Rabbani raised a procedural objection, saying that under rules, a day’s notice was required if amendments were to be moved in a bill on the agenda. He further noted there were several bills on the agenda on which amendments were to be moved, adding their copies had not been provided to members. The joint sitting, he stressed, should not be made a rubber stamp. This view was endorsed by JI Senator Mushtaq Ahmad, Ali Zafar of PTI, Kamran Murtaza of JUIF and PMLN’s Irfan Siddiqui.
During the debate, Murtaza and Rabbani stressed their primary opposition was to changes to Section 230, pertaining to powers of caretakers. Murtaza, Senator Taj Haider, and Zafar also maintained the controversial clause had not been discussed in the parliamentary committee meeting. “I want to put this on record that I was not absent even for a minute from the meeting and the amendment was not taken up there,” said Haider. Rabbani, likewise, said the role of caretakers was different from the elected government. “In caretaker setups, the government does not go to cold storage, rather it goes slow for the reasons that caretakers are unelected,” he said.
Noting the addition of the words “urgent matters” for powers of caretaker setups was “very vague,” he said it would give “unbridled powers” to the interim government.
Defending the clause, Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar said its aim was to empower the caretaker government to ensure the continuity of measures in line with the IMF accord. He further claimed these amendments were included after consultations with all parties, adding the bill was widely circulated in the house and debates were held.
Economic Affairs Minister Ayaz Sadiq, who had presided over the parliamentary committee, said all amendments and suggestions were incorporated in the bill and the report was prepared with consensus.
Apart from the Elections (Amendment) Bill, 2023, the speaker also deferred the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2023; Exit from Pakistan (Control) (Amendment) Bill, 2023; the Maintenance and Welfare of Old Parents and Senior Citizens Bill, 2023; the Civil Servants (Amendment) Bill, 2023; the Banking Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2023; the International Institute of Technology, Culture and Health Sciences Bill, 2023 and the Code of Civil Procedure (Amendment) Bill, 2023 for further discussions. However, the Qanun-e-Shahadat (Amendment) Bill, 2023; the Control of Narcotics Substances (Amendment) Bill, 2023 and the Petroleum (Amendment) Bill, 2023 were passed.
The Elections (Amendment) Bill, 2023 will be placed for a vote again during today’s joint session of Parliament.