MNAs oppose sharing record of assembly’s proceedings with apex court n Defence minister says instead of entangling in political wrangling, SC should dispose of huge pending cases.

 

ISLAMABAD    -    Lawmakers in the National As­sembly yesterday demanded a full-house committee to inves­tigate constitutional violations [committed by the judiciary] from Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Munir and other judg­es till date and said that it is un­fortunate that two constitution­al institutions (parliament and apex court) are interpreting the Constitution differently.

The parliamentarians for the second consecutive day regis­tered their strong protest over the Supreme Court’s order for demanding record of proceed­ings of the lower house of the parliament regarding the Su­preme Court (Practice and Pro­cedure) Bill 2023, which curtails the powers of the top judge

An eight-member bench of the top court, which is current­ly hearing the petitions against the controversial law, had a day earlier directed Attorney Gen­eral for Pakistan (AGP) Man­soor Awan to produce copies of the proceedings of the stand­ing committee and the house "to understand the concerns and views of the lawmakers while passing the bill".

The members proposed to form a committee of the house to thor­oughly debate the matter regard­ing the apex court’s demand re­garding record of the proceedings.

Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, in a hard-hitting speech in the House, remarked that both the institutions [the parliament and the Supreme Court] have visibly locked horns with each other.

He proposed to constitute a committee to analyse the results of orders by former chief justice of Pakistan Muhammad Munir and others. “A resolution needs to be adopted to form a full-house committee to investigate constitutional violations [com­mitted by the judiciary] from Justice Munir till date,” he said.

About the pending cases in the court, he said there were around 180,000 cases pending before the senior judiciary including 51,000 in the apex court. He said it was their basic responsibility to dispose of cases and not en­tangle in political wrangling.

Senior PML-N MNA Shahid Kh­aqan Abbasi said the house's re­cord cannot be handed over to the top court without informing the national assembly members. "This is a very serious matter. This house is supreme and the creator of the Supreme Court," Abbasi, who is also a leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, said.

Opposition leader Raja Riaz was also not in favour of shar­ing the assembly record with the apex court. PPP-P’s MNA and Federal Minister for Com­merce Naveed Qamar remarked that positive progress had been made on various points in the ongoing talks between the gov­ernment and the PTI. 

He said the government want­ed to solve the issues amicably with the PTI and desired suc­cess and progress on this front. The minister said that it was the stance of the Pakistan Peoples Party that political issues could be solved through dialogue. Qa­mar has urged all the political forces to stand united to keep the political process and the parliament going.

PAC Chairman Noor Alam Khansaid said that an audit of the Supreme Court has not been conducted in at least a de­cade. “We have summoned the Supreme Court’s principal ac­counting officer and we have also sought the details of the Mohmand Dam Fund,” he said, adding that the committee has also sought the record of sala­ries and plots obtained by judg­es of the apex court, including the chief justice of the Supreme Court. Noor Alam Khan said the committee is also going to acquire the record of the dam funds collected by former Chief Justice Saqib Nisar.

Later, the House passed a unanimous resolution, affirm­ing the obligation of the govern­ment to safeguard and uphold press freedom against any form of censorship and undue inter­ference. The resolution moved by Mehreen Razzaq Bhutto rec­ommended that the govern­ment should protect freedom of press from censorship and vio­lence and promote its full real­ization in accordance with its international human rights ob­ligations, essential for function­ing of democratic societies and vital for protection of other hu­man rights.

The House recognized the critical role of journalists and media professionals in provid­ing accurate, timely and impar­tial information to the public and the need to protect them from violence, intimidation and harassment.

The lawmakers resolved to take effective measures to en­sure the safety and security and independence of journalists to strengthen the legal and insti­tutional framework for the pro­tection of press freedom and to promote pluralistic, diverse and vibrant media environment in Pakistan.

The House also passed “The Trade Marks (Amendment) Bill, 2023” which was moved by Commerce Minister Syed Nav­eed Qamar.