October 4, 2002	Friday	Rajab 26, 1423

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LAHORE, Oct 3: Legislators to be elected in the general elections will be administered oath under the 1973 Constitution, of which the Legal Framework Order is now a component, Law Minister Dr Khalid Ranjha says.

Talking to Dawn on Thursday, he said although various amendments had been made to the Constitution by the chief executive, the oath of the lawmakers remained unchanged. Thus, he said, the parliamentarians-elect would take the same oath which had been provided in the 1973 Constitution.

The minister said judges of the superior courts, who had taken oath under the PCO, would not have to take fresh oath on the revival of the Constitution.

The law minister insisted that the Legal Framework Order, through which some new provisions had been added to the Constitution and some others amended or deleted, needed no protection from the parliament.

“Under what law are political parties taking part in the elections,” the law minister asked. Then, he himself answered the question, saying it was under the LFO. Their participation in the electoral process under the very law, which they were otherwise opposing, amounted to endorsing it, Dr Ranjha argued.

The LFO introduced drastic amendments to the Constitution, the increase in the number of assemblies’ seats, reduction in the voting age, the formation of a National Security Council, transferring many vital powers of the prime minister to the president, empowering the head of state to dissolve the assembly being some of them.

The LFO also legitimizes the controversial April 30 referendum, by which Gen Musharraf has become president for another five years. The term will start when he will relinquish the charge of the chief executive.

Prominent constitutional expert Abid Hassan Minto said that according to the LFO, now the 1973 Constitution was as it had been amended by the chief executive.

Once a legislator took oath under the amended Constitution, he would be pledging to protect the LFO as well.

However, he said, subsequently the legislators would be empowered to amend the Constitution in a manner provided for the purposes i.e. by a two-third majority.

The elected representatives might add, alter or delete any article of the Constitution they think was not required.

He said no matter how averse various political parties were to the LFO, if their legislators-elect took the oath under the amended Constitution, they would be accepting the legitimacy of all changes introduced in the basic law.