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| September 16, 2006 | Saturday | Sha'aban 22, 1427 |
Stalled NA awaits diluted women’s rights bill
ISLAMABAD, Sept 15: The National Assembly broke up for the weekend on Friday without touching its legislative agenda as some parties and members seemed losing patience with conservatives seeking to dilute the women’s rights bill.
Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain regretted members ‘wasted’ time in raising points of order at the cost of law-making, which the session could not do mainly owing to the controversy over the government’s Protection of Women (Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill that religious parties and conservatives in the ruling party want to change but disagree on details.
As the house adjourned until 5pm on Monday, leaders of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal had failed to end a deadlock over what to do to meet the MMA’s objections to the bill already approved by a special house select committee.
The MMA, which has threatened to resign its 66 seats in the 342-seat Assembly and withdraw from the PML-led coalition government in Balochistan province if the draft is passed in its present shape, said its ‘reservations’ had not been removed until Friday.
“The bill should be in complete accord with the holy Quran and Sunnah or we will oppose it with full force,” a statement by the alliance’s ulema committee on the issue said.
But PML president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, who is calling the shots over the issue while both President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on foreign visits, assured the alliance that new amendments would incorporate its proposals, which are opposed by key government partner Muttahida Qaumi Movement and many ruling party members.
But he was unsure when the amendments would be finalised. “It could take two days or four days,” he told reporters outside the house. The bill, seeking to protect women from the misuse of two controversial Islamic Hudood ordinances about punishments for Zina (adultery and rape) and Qazf (false accusation of Zina) enforced in 1979 by then military ruler Gen Mohammad Ziaul Haq, was the first item on Friday’s legislative agenda — as on several previous days — but was not taken up without any explanation.
There was no official word when the bill would be taken up by the house, which has been in an unusually long session for 40 days now while most members seem keen to go back to their homes before the start of Ramazan likely to begin on Sept 24 or 25.
As a sign of frustration, the People’s Party Parliamentarians came out openly on Friday against MMA-sought changes, apparently risking a division in the opposition while PML (Nawaz) seemed to distance itself from the controversy after joining the MMA in boycotting the select committee that recommended approval of the bill earlier this month after making several amendments in the original government draft. The PPP had joined the select committee and vowed to support the draft that included some of its own amendments, but had refrained from joining the controversy between the MMA and the government.
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