ISLAMABAD, Dec 30: In a big show of sanity amid a wave of political insanity outside parliament, the Senate unanimously passed the 19th Amendment to the Constitution on Thursday, completing the parliamentary approval of the bill designed to meet most of Supreme Court’s concerns over a new mode of appointing the superior judiciary.

In a special daylong session, the house took more than three hours to debate and vote on the Constitution (19th Amendment) Bill that, after having been passed by the National Assembly eight days ago, now requires only the formality of assent by President Asif Ali Zardari to be operative as an important addition to the 18th Amendment approved in April and still in the process of implementation.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani called the 80-0 vote on the bill in the 100-seat house a “New Year gift”, which came as Islamabad and its environs enjoyed — despite biting winter cold — the end of months of a dry spell.

The consensus of all senators present in the house was slightly better than the Dec 22 vote in the National Assembly, which was denied unanimity by a single negative vote, and was in sharp contrast to a prevailing divisive hullabaloo marked by shocks given to the ruling Pakistan People’s Party by two allied parties — the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement — by withdrawing from the cabinet and a vicious war of words between the MQM and the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-N.

The prime minister referred to this situation only obliquely as he reaffirmed PPP’s policy of political reconciliation and called for an end to a “politics of speculation”, which critics have usually directed against his nearly three-year-old coalition government.

But Mr Gilani made a fun of such speculations, comparing presumed deadlines about the life of his government to usual brick-throwing gestures of a conman in rural Punjab, and jokingly advised his detractors to form their own committee to give “a single deadline”. But he added: “Governments do not go with these speculations.”

He said his government would remain and seek cooperation of others so long it enjoyed majority in parliament, but if some other party got the majority “then we will support them”.

The prime minister did not mention resignations by two JUI ministers along with their party’s decision to leave the coalition to protest against his sacking of a party minister for alleged indiscipline nor to resignations by two MQM ministers without leaving the coalition.

But the JUI decision had a little echo in the house when its parliamentary leader Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri requested Chairman Farooq H. Naek for an early decision on the party’s request for the allotment of opposition seats to its four senators, one of whom, Rehmatullah Khan Kakar, who has resigned as housing minister, still occupied his front-row ministerial seat.

As the chair promised an early decision, opposition leader Wasim Sajjad of the PML-Q suggested, in a lighter vein, that defectors from the coalition be allotted back benches on the coalition side, as the opposition side did not have enough space for them.

But Maulana Haideri, in apparent reference to the government’s recent political contacts with the PML-Q, asked Mr Sajjad: “You better occupy the seats that we will vacate.”

After Prime Minister’s Adviser Raza Rabbani explained the background and salient features of the bill drafted by an 26-member all-party Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Reforms headed by him in light of an Oct 21 Supreme Court order on challenges to some clauses of the 18th Amendment, 30 senators, including leaders of all parliamentary parties, voiced their support for the proposed amendments and lauded the work of the committee.

The prime minister announced that the highest civil award of Nishan-i-Pakistan would be awarded to members of Senator Rabbani’s committee in recognition of their services in forging consensus on both amendments.

Some of the speakers called for more changes in the Constitution through a 20th amendment, such as facilitating the creation of new provinces and solving problems that may arise from the implementation of the 18th Amendment like those relating to education, health and agricultural tax.

But Afrasiab Khattak of the government-allied Awami National Party warned against reopening settled issues such as the educational curricula that, he said, could hit provincial autonomy and shatter the consensus forged on the 18th Amendment.

The petitions heard by the Supreme Court had mainly challenged parliament’s role in appointing judges of the superior courts who, under the 18th Amendment, must be finally approved by an eight-member bipartisan parliamentary committee comprising equal representations of the two houses after being nominated by a judicial commission headed by the chief justice.

One of the new amendments provides for increasing the strength of the judicial commission to nine members from seven and of the senior-most Supreme Court judges on it to four from two, besides a former judge of the court to be named by the chief justice, the federal law minister, the attorney-general and a senior lawyer of at least 15 years’ experience to be nominated by the Pakistan Bar Council.

Under some other amendments, the parliamentary committee must hold its meetings in camera but record its proceedings and send its approval or rejection of a nominee of the judicial commission to the prime minister rather than directly to the president, who will make the final notification, and the chief justice must consult other members of the commission in the appointment of ad hoc judges.

An amendment moved by two senators from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas — Haji Rashid and Mohammad Idris Khan — seeking the merger of 25 adjacent villages of the settled areas with the tribal Mohmand Agency was ruled out by the chair as outside the scope of the bill.

PML-Q’s Haroon Khan did not press an amendment seeking to take agricultural income tax from the exclusive jurisdiction of provinces.

But the prime minister said the question of agricultural tax could be further discussed with the opposition along with other issues like a proposed new accountability bill and price hike.

Mr Rabbani also assured the house earlier that his committee would keep the agricultural tax issue alive so long as he headed the body, although, he said: “I will now like to hang up my gloves.”