A joint session of Parliament passed the National Commission for Minorities Bill 2025 with some changes on Tuesday, which aims to establish a national body dedicated to protecting and promoting the rights of minority communities in Pakistan.
Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar tabled the bill amid outcry from some members, particularly those belonging to the PTI and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), and with National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq presiding over the session.
The bill was supported by 160 members, with 79 voting against it.
While the law minister was presenting the bill, several members vocally opposed the bill. At this, Tarar clarified that “neither the law and the Constitution, nor our conscience allows us to make a proposal that contradicts the Quran and Sunnah”.
He said four amendments were suggested to the original draft of the bill, and they had been incorporated into the proposed legislation.
Saying that minorities were defined as “non-Muslims” in the Constitution, he said: “This is a commission for non-Muslims. Our Hindu, Christian and Parsi brothers are as good Pakistanis as we are.”
The minister recalled that a 2014 Supreme Court judgement called for the constitution of a commission for minorities. The matter had landed in the joint sitting after around 10 years, he added, before the debate on the bill began.
During the debate, PTI chairperson and MNA Barrister Gohar Ali Khan pointed out that the bill had landed in the joint session after the President returned without giving his assent and with some objections.
The bill was referred to the president after separate approvals by both houses of Parliament for his assent. However, in late August, the presidency announced that a consensus had been reached on amendments to bill, following which and a revised version was finalised and forwarded to Parliament for reconsideration in a joint session.
“It should be debated why the President did not give his assent to the bill,” Barrister Gohar said.
The PTI chairperson also objected to Section 35 of the bill, which was further elaborated on by JUI-F Senator Kamran Murtaza.
He said Section 35 of the bill stated that the legislation would have an overriding effect. This meant that being the more recent law, which would be the bill under consideration after its approval, would have an overriding effect on all previous legislation.
He said that the provision should be omitted from the bill in its entirety.
Moreover, he also objected to Section 12 of the bill, which he said gave suo motu powers to the commission to be established under the proposed legislation.
At one point during the discussion, the speaker also gave Barrister Gohar the floor, who again called for debating the objections raised by the president. He said the president had pointed out that the term minorities was being defined for the first time; that the chairperson and members of the prospective commission could be removed only in the manner in which the judges of the SC and high courts; the commission would be empowered to create its own posts and upgrade them when n other commission had such powers; and that the commission was being allowed to have an independent account.
The speaker eventually put the bill before the joint session for vote, and the bill was subsequently approved by Parliament with the changes suggested by Senator Murtaza.