ISLAMABAD: The Senate on Thursday extended the National Accountability (Amendment) Ordinance 2023 for another 120 days amid voices of ‘no’, mostly from PTI legislators.
A day after the requisitioned session was prorogued, the president summoned a regular session of the House and a resolution was moved in the Senate in this context by Law Minister Ahmad Irfan Aslam, which was approved through a voice vote. Earlier, the minister laid in the House the National Accountability (Amendment) Ordinance 2023 (Ordinance No I of 2023), as required by Clause (2) of Article 89 of the Constitution. The extension will take effect from October 31, 2023. It may be recalled that Chairman Senate Sadiq Sanjrani had promulgated the ordinance in his capacity as acting president in July. In the chair, he averted criticism of the move before adoption of the resolution for the ordinance’s extension. At that time, President Dr Arif Alvi was in Saudi Arabia when Sanjrani, on the advice of then prime minister Shehbaz Sharif, had promulgated the ordinance.
Under the amendments to the accountability law made through the ordinance, the arrested accused can be kept on physical remand for 30 days instead of 14 while it was a 90-day remand. The ordinance empowered the NAB chairman to issue arrest warrants for the accused in case of non-cooperation during the investigation. It also empowered the anti-graft body to arrest the accused at the level of inquiry.
PTI parliamentary leader Senator Ali Zafar was on his feet prior to putting the resolution for voice vote, to point out that the House was to pass a resolution to extend the National Accountability (Amendment) Ordinance, 2023 when the Supreme Court of Pakistan had declared amendments made to the NAB law unconstitutional.
“If it is necessary to pass it, the proposed law should be sent to a committee for further examination,” he suggested and contended that at the lawmaking stage, he had advised that the right of appeal should not be given retrospectively in SC decisions under 184(3) of the Constitution, the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Act 2023.
“I had suggested that it was necessary to give the right to appeal, but an effort to giving the same retrospectively would be set aside (by the SC),” he explained and noted that the amendment was person-specific and an effort to open the Panama case against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. “But this law was passed in haste… the eight judges of apex court said that it was not the authority of parliament to do legislation retrospectively. However, things would improve if we move ahead with legislation through debate,” he stressed.
To this, the chair said the ordinance had been sent to the committee in the form of a bill, but getting extension of the ordinance was a constitutional requirement. Then the chair moved the resolution seeking an extension of the National Accountability (Amendment) Ordinance, 2023, for a further period of one hundred and twenty days with effect from 31st October, 2023 under proviso to sub-paragraph (ii) of paragraph (a) of Clause (2) of Article 89 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
Responding to the PTI legislator, PMLN Senator Azam Nazeer Tarar said that SC had accepted the authority of parliament to make legislation for people and it would continue to do so. He explained that a three-member SC bench in a 2-1 decision had only struck down 30 per cent sections of the NAB amendment law and 70 per cent were retained. He said the present ordinance was promulgated to rectify some teething problems and it was necessary to reorganize the NAB.
Senator Tarar said the work of the prosecution was being affected as a result of it. It had suggested that the amendment of reducing 90-day remand to 14 was irrational and the prosecution had advised to rationalize it to 30 days.
The law that benefits both prosecution and defence and creates a balance should not be criticized unnecessarily. The ordinance would not become law until the House approves it. The amendment was not person-specific because the parliament amended Section 232 of the Elections Act and decided the upper limit of disqualification period. “This doesn’t happen in any part of the world that any person is disqualified for lifetime and hence the lifetime disqualification of Nawaz Sharif was incorrect,” he argued.
Leader of the House Senator Ishaq Dar said many of the SC decisions made under suo motu notices were controversial and the Panama Papers case was one of them. He said the retrospective clause for onetime period of 30 days introduced in the procedure act was well-intentioned, genuine and honest, but the court set it aside. He underlined that the controversial history and political victimization would be rectified through such clauses, deploring that the court did not uphold it.
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUIF) Senator Kamran Murtaza questioned whether the extension of the ordinance had been given mechanically without discussion and applying one’s mind and that the House had given the extension to the NAB law on which the SC had ruled. He also asked whether this extension was lawful when the SC judgment (on the matter) was in the field. He demanded that President Arif Alvi immediately quit for his failure to give a date for elections under Article 48 of the Constitution, wondering whether he failed to understand the constitutional provision or failed to implement it.
Another PTI lawmaker Humayun Mohmand alleged that it was the Law Ministry, which had misguided that the president had no authority to give the date for elections. He said they should sit together and disband the NAB once and for all.
PMLN’s Saadia Abbasi said the NAB was a black law introduced by a military dictator and regretted that no democratic government could set it aside.
Tahir Bizenjo of the National Party said the NAB law was misused to target political opponents in last over five years. Irfan Siddiqui, Mushahid Hussain Syed of the PMLN and BAP’s Manzoor Kakar strongly raised their concerns regarding the role played by the NAB in the country’s politics over the years.
They questioned the transparency, efficiency and overall effectiveness of NAB investigations and prosecutions. The House will now resume on Friday morning.
