ISLAMABAD - Ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) was hectically working to muster enough strength to get the much controversial Protection of Pakistan Ordinance (PPO) passed from Parliament, particularly the Upper House, where the ruling alliance is not comfortable.
Sources in the government informed that Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) Parliamentary Party in the Upper House of the Parliament would meet here on Monday (December 2) to evolve strategy to muster enough support to get the Protection of Pakistan Ordinance through from Senate.
In the meeting head of session, which would start at 4:00pm on Monday the PML-N central leader and Leader of the House in Senate Raja Zafarul Haq would take the allied parties into confidence on Protection of Pakistan Ordinance while contacts with major opposition parties would also be made to woo their support for this ordinance.
Sources in the ruling PML-N informed The Nation that the government wanted to get this piece of legislation from both houses of the Parliament with consensus and could even take time to win over the opposition parties’ support by addressing the concerns shown by the leadership of some of the opposition parties on it.
Soon after its promulgation the Protection of Pakistan Ordinance was in the eye of the storm and opposition Parliamentarians besides the civil society members come up with harsh criticism on some of the clauses and termed it the strangulation of the civil liberties and basic human rights.
The PML-N leadership had assured time and again that they would address the concerns raised on it and would place it for thorough debate in both the houses of the Parliament.
The strongest criticism on the Protection of Pakistan Ordinance came from the Pakistan Tehreek-I-Insaf, which feared that the blanket powers of interrogation given to the law enforcement agencies would be misused and demanded of the government to remove all the legal lacunae in it.
Sources in PML-N government said that party leaders were in contact with main opposition parties and assured them that their concerns would be duly addressed when the ordinance would be tabled before the Parliament for proper legislation.
The sources further said that PML-N leadership wanted to get it through from both houses of the Parliament in upcoming sessions starting in the first week of December (Senate on December 2 and National Assembly December 5), but in case they feel that they would not get it passed from the Upper House of the Parliament they could defer it for time being so that the MPs in the Upper House could be convinced that the stringent measures proposed in the ordinance could not be misused.