June 11, 2008	Wednesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 06, 1429

ISLAMABAD, June 10: Amid a rising political temperature, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Tuesday in effect dared President Pervez Musharraf to make a mandatory address to a largely hostile parliament, most of whose members want him out of his isolated office.

The move came in the National Assembly in the form of a challenging invitation to the president on the eve of the new budget while political tensions seemed rising after renewed demands for his ouster and over a lawyers’ “long march” due to arrive in Islamabad on Thursday.

The prime minister said the president’s failure to address a joint sitting of the two houses of parliament for the past four years had been unconstitutional and “it will be unconstitutional if it happens even now”.

“We invite the president to address the joint sitting of majlis-i-shoora (parliament) as required by the Constitution,” he said while responding to an odd question from an outspoken pro-Musharraf opposition member who wanted to know if the present government would continue with its predecessors’ practice of carrying on with a parliamentary year without a presidential address.

Riaz Hussain Pirzada of the formerly ruling Pakistan Muslim League had sought a ruling from Speaker Fehmida Mirza whether the presentation of the budget would be unconstitutional without meeting the constitutional requirement that the president must address a joint sitting of the National Assembly and the Senate at the start of a parliamentary year and after the election of the National Assembly.

The speaker said the budget would be constitutional even without such an address but she asked the government to send a “summary”, or advice, to the president to call a joint sitting and address it.

Mr Gilani referred to the parliament being the major component of the presidential electoral college, which also includes the four provincial assemblies, and said “he should come to his constituency”.

President Musharraf addressed only one joint sitting in January 2004, braving noisy opposition protests, and refused to do it again unless the opposition gave an assurance he would be heard in silence.

He repeated the same condition in a talk with a selected group of journalists last week if he were to address a joint sitting now.

But it is unlikely his opponents now forming a PPP-led coalition government after winning the Feb 18 elections would give such an assurance while many of them have plans to move an impeachment motion to oust him for alleged violations of the Constitution ranging from his Oct 12, 1999 coup to the extra-constitutional Nov 3, 2007 emergency under which about 60 judges of the superior courts lost their jobs for refusing or not being called to take oath under a Provisional Constitution Order.

While security arrangements in Islamabad worried organisers of the lawyers’ “long march”, the prime minister told the house in response to another query from a member of a coalition party that he had set up a ministerial committee to facilitate the protesters seeking the reinstatement of the deposed judges and talk to them about their march route and the site of their gathering.

The lawyers, who launched their march on Monday from Karachi and Quetta and will depart from Multan on Wednesday on way to Lahore, plan to congregate outside the parliament house on a broad avenue used for March 23 Pakistan Day military parades.

But the prime minister’s Interior Adviser Rehman Malik, who is one of five members of the ministerial committee, said the government would like the lawyers to stop several kilometres away somewhere near Shakarparian hill park or the Zero Point at the entry to the capital.

Witnesses said dozens of containers had been brought into the capital and parked at different sites leading to fears the vehicles could be used the block the lawyers’ march as was done in Karachi on May 12, 2007 to foil a planned welcoming procession for deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, leading to the killings of nearly 50 people by gunfire.

Ironically, the place chosen by the lawyers for their congregation is the same where President Musharraf addressed a government-organised rally on May 12.

PML-N’s Khurram Dastgir, whose party is supporting the lawyers’ movement, had complained about the deployment of the containers and asked the government not to block the march aimed at pressing for reinstatement of the deposed judges through a parliamentary resolution and an executive government order.The house held a debate on the prevailing price hike before being adjourned until 6.15pm on Wednesday, when the government will unveil the budget for fiscal 2008-09.