KARACHI: Political parties reject changes to constitution
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, July 13: A consensus resolution passed at a seminar on Saturday rejected the constitutional amendment package announced by the government a few days ago.
The resolution at the seminar, “Provincial Consultation on Democratic Values: Obligations of Political Parties”, organized by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan also rejected the Political Parties Ordinance 2002 announced by the government a few days back.
The resolution also condemned the condition that a candidate for any seat in the parliament should be a graduate. The meeting also approved the 18 points accepted at a political parties’ meeting organized by the HRCP in Lahore.
However, only the representative of one party, the Pakistan Awami Tehreek, said the party supported the graduation condition and the establishment of a national security council to keep a check on the elected prime minister / government.
Other parties maintained that the graduation condition had disqualified almost 97 per cent of the population from contesting for the parliamentary seats. They said that only the people had a right to elect or choose their representatives in the parliament and a military government had no right to put such a condition.
Condemning the Political Parties Ordinance 2002, they said that again it was the right of the people to choose which party to support and all the parties which wanted to contest the polls must be allowed. They also slated the recently announced constitutional amendment package and said that if it was adopted the next government would not be a truly parliamentary government.
Some of the points on which a consensus was built at the Lahore meeting and which were also widely accepted here are:
No constitutional formula giving any stakeholding role to the military in the future political setup would be accepted. The military would not be invited to take over power; an inter-party coordinator would be appointed in each political party to resolve the differences between political parties.
Political parties would take steps to eradicate the menace of sectarianism, terrorism, violence and gun culture and bring enlightened changes to educational curricula to inspire new generation by the values of humanism, peace and tolerance.
A caretaker government would be installed for conducting national elections and for ensuing smooth transfer of power. Maximum provincial autonomy would be given to remove the grievances of federating units within the federal parliamentary system.
Legal protection would be given to the local bodies and their elections would be held by the federating units in a joint electorate system and on a party basis. All expenses, including that on defence, should be subject to parliamentary approval and all treaties, agreements, financial or otherwise, negotiated with foreign parties would be made public and would be scrutinized by the parliament.
The freedom of information law would be formulated and implemented and the Archives Law would be amended to ensure release of public record after 15 or 20 years. A regulatory body comprising parliamentarians — having equal number of members from the treasury and opposition — would be set up to ensure fair and objective coverage.
Political parties would oppose the misuse of the exit control list, seek to repeal arbitrary detention laws like the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) Ordinance and condemn detention without trial.
Political parties would continue to ensure freedom of religion and would not support prosecution on the basis of belief. Special attention would be given to the rights of women and children and all the laws, policies and practices that are discriminatory towards women, minorities and disadvantaged groups would be repealed; and a culture of tolerance and respect for difference of opinion would be encouraged.
Political parties would support efforts made to end impunity for crimes committed against women, religious minorities or sects and against the marginalized sections of the society. Steps would be taken to depoliticize the bureaucracy and armed forces so that they become truly professional. The participant parties had conflicting opinions on the question of the creation of a fund out of which grants would be made to political parties in proportion with their strength in the parliament so that proper functioning of political parties and the education of their cadres were not restricted for want of clean funds.
The representatives of the Pakistan Muslim League (N), the Pakistan Peoples Party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, the Punjabi Pakhtoon Ittehad, the Pakistan Awami Tehreek, the National Workers Party, the Pakistan Labour Party, the Jeay Sindh Mahaz, the Pakistan Millat Party, besides lawyers, representatives of NGOs, HRCP activists and media personnel attended the seminar.
Iqbal Haider, Ejaz Shafi, Raza Rabbani, Kanwer Khalid Yunus, Ghulam Sarwar Awan, N. D. Khan, Najeeb Ahmad, Akhtar Hussain, Abdul Khaliq Junejo, Zubair Rehman, Iftikhar Bukhari, Faqir M. Himayati, Jamaluddin Naqvi, Omar Baloch, Usman Baloch, Ghazi Salahuddin, Beena Sarwar, Ali Hassan, Dr Haroon Ahmad, Uzma Noorani and others spoke on the occasion.
