Extension law needs review: Shahid Khaqan

ISLAMABAD: Former Prime Minister and PMLN Senior Vice President Shahid Khaqan Abbasi says the legislation enacted in early 2020 for extension in service of the armed services chiefs needs to be reviewed.

Talking to The News, Abbasi said that to avoid any ambiguity, the required changes may be made after the Nov 2022 key military appointments. The PMLN leader said that extensions in service are an exception to the norm and they should not be a routine provision in the law. He said neither the defence establishment had sought the legislative amendments made in January 2020 nor was it the initiative of the Parliament, as it was the Supreme Court’s intervention that led to the changes made to the statutes regulating the military.

The News had reported on Saturday that in close circles within the government, there has been a discussion to undo the 2020 amendments to the laws governing defence forces that allow the prime minister to extend the tenure of services chiefs.

Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, in a TV talk show on Saturday night, however, said that no legislation was being done to undo the 2020 amendments. Informed source confided to The News that on Friday last, a federal minister had already talked to an important stakeholder about the required changes to the law.

These are preliminary discussions among a few in the government. There is a possibility that the matter would be discussed in a wider circle in the next few weeks to decide about undoing of amendments made to the Army Act, Navy Act and Air Force Act in January 2020. The timing of these amendments may be post-November.

As per the 2020 amendments, the appointment of the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Committee and the services chiefs would be the prerogative of the prime minister, and his decision to appoint, reappoint or extend the tenure of chiefs and chairman cannot be challenged in any court of law. These amendments had also fixed the upper age limit of four star appointment at 64 years in the case of reappointment and extension.

On November 26, 2019, the Supreme Court of Pakistan had delivered an unprecedented judgment on the legality of the extension and re-appointment of the Chief of the Army Staff. After three days of hearings, the SC gave its verdict in the case and declared that there was a gap in the law when it came to the extension of duration of tenure of the COAS. The SC then allowed a period of six months to the legislature to formulate a law to address this gap.

In response to this verdict, parliament amended the relevant laws, which for the first time allowed the chief executive through an act of law to extend the tenure of four-star generals. After these amendments, Maryam Nawaz, when asked by the media to comment on the issue, had said that she was not part of this sin.