ISLAMABAD: Senator Farhatullah Babar of Pakistan Peoples Party here has said that a new democracy model has been introduced Pakistan in which political leadership holds the driving seat while someone else controls it from the back seat. He was speaking at the roundtable discussion on the development of freedom of expression in Pakistan, conducted by the AGHS, Legal Aid Cell. Senator Babar said that an old tussle and war was going on between freedom of expression and reasonable restriction. He suggested that freedom of expression be promoted and restriction on expression be narrowed down. He said that most of the time restrictions were imposed in the name of national security. He pointed out that when the question was asked in the parliament whether military officials declared their assets to their respective department the response came that it was a national security issue. When the question was asked in parliament on the Kargil inquiry, as to under what laws, intelligence agencies keep people under their custody, how one person died in the custody of NAB, the reply was not different from the earlier one, he added. He said four provincial governments have done legislation on the Right to Information (RTI). Sindh Laws in this perspective are weak. But, the federal government had not legislated on this count. He said that the proposed bill on cyber crime was aimed at curbing freedom of expression. He demanded the formation of a parliamentary committee on national security to discuss the all such issues in entirety. Faooq Sattar Member of National Assembly belondging to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) said that his party was sandwiched between people in uniform and people without uniform as both have a feudal mentality. He said that without tolerance and a democratic culture democracy cannot flourish. He stressed the need for formulation of a minimum national agenda for detailed discussion between political parties and the civil society. He said initially the minus one formula came and then the minus two and now the minus three. He said that minus one meant minus Altaf Hussain, minus two meant without Asif Ali Zardari and now minus three meaning without Nawaz Sharif was discussed here. He said when the minus Altaf formula came we said that this formula would not remain limited to the MQM but other parties would also suffer from this formula in the future. Sattar said that there was a need to revisit Article 19 of the Constitution of Pakistan. He said there was also a need to define national interest and national security. Dr. Ramish Kumar of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N said that if the parliament, the judiciary, the media and all other institutions did their jobs properly, many problems would be resolved automatically. But in reality, neither the previous government of the PPP nor our government is handling the problems and the issues. Asma Jehangir, advocate supreme court, demanded setting up of a separate constitutional court for interpreting laws. This was also demanded in the charter of democracy. She also underscored the need for institutional development of the media. There should be an alternative to ratings. She stated that if any media organisation was served a notice by PEMRA, she was ready to offer her legal service against the same.