Daily Times

A legislative body of the Upper House of Parliament on Thursday discussed “The Ratification of Foreign Agreements by Parliament Bill, 2018” moved by Senator Mian Raza Rabbani and decided to take it up again in the next meeting.

The matter is of utmost importance and required more deliberations from experts, stated members of the Senate Standing Committee on Law and Justice, which met today with Senator Javed Abbasi in the chair. Briefing the committee, Raza Rabbani said that bringing the foreign agreements to parliament would make the process more transparent. Minister for Law and Justice Senator Farogh Naseem, while responding to the bill, opposed it by calling it “against the principle of trichotomy of powers” as provided by the constitutional scheme. He said Article 173(3) of the constitution permits the executive authority to enter into any contract or agreement. He said there were a number of cases in which the Supreme Court had interpreted certain laws as violative of the concept of separation of powers and the laws were struck down. He said bringing contracts to parliament would limit the freedom of such contracts, and this would be an unnecessary clog on the powers of the executive.

Senator Farooq H Naek said that parliament could make laws about how to implement the foreign agreements but could not ratify the agreements. He called for making the required amendments to the bill. Senator Anwarul Haq Kakar agreed to the point of view of the government, while Senator Abdul Rehman Malik supported the bill. Senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar said that in principle the bill was in good faith and the people through parliament need to know what contracts the government was entering into. Senator Sherry Rehman said she supported the bill but also believed that in order to get this through a constitutional amendment was required. “We need to respond to the need of this bill,” she said. Senator Musadik Malik said that in a parliamentary democracy there was always an overlap in the powers of the executive and the legislature. He also said the balance between transparency and expediency had also to be maintained. The committee decided to discuss the bill further in the next meeting.

Raza Rabbani says bringing foreign agreements to parliament will make the process more transparent

The committee also discussed “The Islamabad High Court (Amendment) Bill, 2019” introduced by the law minister as a government bill, calling for increasing the number of judges from seven to 10. The minister observed that over the time the Islamabad High Court had emerged as a court getting more and more cases and had evolved. He said that with more courts, the number of judges also needed to be increased to overcome the pendency in cases. Senator Farooq Naek said the existing posts of judges were not filled entirely and an increase in their number would be of no use until all vacancies were filled. Javed Abbasi remarked that there should also be a decision on who could be appointed as a judge in the Islamabad High Court. The Islamabad High Court Bar Council and the Islamabad High Court Bar Association supported the bill, but called for making the number of judges 11 instead of 10 and making it mandatory that the judges be from Islamabad.

The committee members supported the increase in number and hence the bill, but decided to delay passing of the bill until the next meeting. The minister gave a commitment to the committee that the government would bring an amendment to the Islamabad High Court Act regarding bar on appointment of judges from areas other than Islamabad. The committee in principle agreed with the amendment bill under discussion but asked the ministry to initiate the process for amendment to the High Court Act and bring the same in the next meeting before passing of the bill.

The committee also discussed “The Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2018” (fourth schedule) moved by Senator Syed Sabir Shah regarding uniform printing of the Holy Quran in the entire country. The mover stressed the need for using better quality paper to reduce the damage of paper after long use of the Holy Quran. Members of the committee supported the essence and intent of the bill but observed that printing had always been a subsidiary subject and taking it away from provinces and having a central authority responsible for printing might not be a good idea. The committee also heard the chairman of the Council of Islamic Ideology and representatives of the ministry of religious affairs and provincial auqaf departments who told the meeting that all provinces had passed their respective laws to ensure quality and error-free printing of the Holy Quran. The committee decided to take samples of the grammage of the paper in the next meeting, saying that the mover shall withdraw the bill on condition of satisfaction.