ISLAMABAD, Aug 30: Federal Law Minister Dr Khalid Ranjha on Friday rejected the notion that checks in the constitutional amendments were aimed only for the prime minister.

He was responding to a question from audience at a special programme on the amendments on BBC World’s current affairs weekly programme, Question Time Pakistan.

Former information minister and Millat Party Senior Vice-President Javed Jabbar, prominent lawyers, ex-federal law minister Barrister Khalid Anwar, constitutional experts and former Sindh governor Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim were other panelists.

Ranjha said: “Though the president has checks on prime minister, Parliament and the Supreme Court have checks on the president.”

He said that under the Constitution, the prime minister was going to be the chief executive of the country. “Everything which is to be done is to be done by him”, he noted.

The minister said the president had no power whatsoever apart from two things: He could appoint the army chief and he was chief of the army.

Referring to the checks on the president, the minister pointed out that the parliament could impeach him. Ranjha said the Supreme Court could overturn the presidential order when he would exercise 58(2) B to sack prime minister or the government. This was another check on the president, he added.

But other panelists, including Javed Jabbar and Khalid Anwar, did not agree with the minister, and said he could sack the prime minister and the government before impeachment.

The minister said the concept of checks and balances had emerged after several measures had been tried in the past.

“We tried the 1956 Constitution. It did not work; it was parliamentary form. We tried 1952 Constitution, presidential form. It didn’t work. We tried 1972 Constitution, again a presidential didn’t work, then we had 1973 Constitution, again parliamentary and all the powers of president were given to the prime minister. It didn’t work. Then we had a concept of checks and balances, and security council was conceived as a check and balance which was then deterred by the then law minister in 1996-97. That was in the form of law. Now we have the National Security Council in the shape of constitution”, he said.

To another question, Dr Ranjha said the amendments were aimed at peaceful transition, and this was the mechanism of reverting back to civil government under the Constitution of 1973.

Javed Jabbar said it was the duty of forthcoming parliament to look into these amendments. He said 12 of these amendment were positive. They increased the size of the parliament. They gave them the right to represent. They increased the role in the financial independence, he added.—APP