Daily Times

In acting on partisan considerations and toeing the line preferred by hawks on the Treasury benches, National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser has risked degrading his august office. Successive speakers in the past have been issuing production orders for detained members. Thus his reluctance to issue similar orders in respect of MNAs Asif Zardari, Khwaja Saad Rafiq, Mohsin Dawar and Ali Wazir stands out as a breach of parliamentary norms.

Allowing a detained MNA or MPA to attend the legislative proceeding is neither a concession by the speaker nor a favour to the member. Legislators have a duty to attend the house and represent their electorates. The incumbent government has been hell bent on denying the entry of the four MNAs taken into custody over various charges. The speaker, who had earned early praise for running the house fairly, and being judicious in letting the Opposition members, has shown his helplessness to issue the production orders. The single failure has damaged his credibility and made the budget debate impossible. He had earlier allowed Shahbaz Sharif and Khwaja Saad Rafiq to attend the sessions by issuing production orders. On Tuesday, several Pakistan Peoples Party legislators besieged his chamber to register their protest. In days to come, the issue could cause a further escalation of tensions in the parliament and elsewhere.

The speaker should take a leaf from his predecessors’ books. Speaker after speaker, they have resisted the Executive’s dictates to maintain their impartiality and credibility. Even during Gen Pervez Musharraf’s presidency, the National Assembly speaker did not make the production orders an issue. Now, that the Punjab Assembly speaker has also issued production orders for Hamza Shahbaz and Khwaja Salman Rafiq, the two MPAs in custody, why should the National Assembly speaker look the other way?

It is a sign of the untenable position the hawks have taken, that even the coalition partners of the government do not endorse the government’s policy to resist the production orders. Both Muttahidda Qaumi Movement-Pakistan and Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-i-Azam) members have supported the opposition demand for production orders. At the end of the day, the confrontational policy adopted by Treasury benches is going to hurt themselves. The nation has already witnessed the disgusting scenes of Treasury benches booing the Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly for four days running. There have been reports in the press suggesting that the prime minister himself has ordered the speaker not to let the ‘corrupt’ MNAs attend the assembly sessions. The speaker’s failure to issue the orders lends credence to such reports, particularly since no spokesperson for the government has tried to remove the impression. If the reports are true, this government is going to have an unenviable legacy. Such conduct is unheard of in any part of the democratic world. *