ISLAMABAD: Only three days after its big show of passing a key constitution amendment by more than the required two-thirds majority, the National Assembly suffered a relapse of fewness on Friday, cutting short its day after a flurry of protest walkouts by both government allies and opponents.

The 342-seat house passed the Constitution (Twenty-first Amendment) Bill, providing cover for speedy military court trials of civilian terrorism suspects, on Tuesday by 247 votes — 19 more than the required 228 — despite a boycott by three parties.

Also read: Parliament passes 21st Constitutional Amendment, Army Act Amendment

But the menace of absenteeism gradually returned to the house after the Jan 6 vote, and on Friday, it was left with much less than the quorum of one-fourth of its strength, or 86 members, even after most of the lawmakers who had staged three separate token walkouts by as many parties had returned, forcing Deputy Speaker Murtaza Javed Abbzsi, to adjourn the house early for a two-day weekend until 4pm on Monday.

Members of the government-allied Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-F (JUI-F) were the first to walk out in support of a continuing boycott of the house by its independent members from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) to protest the allegedly autocratic policies of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Sardar Mehtab Ahmed Khan, who oversees their semi-autonomous region on behalf of the federal government, and were followed by the main opposition Pakistan People’s Party.

The Pakistan Muslim League-F (PML-F), another ally of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government, staged the walkout to protest against difficulties faced by sugarcane growers in Sindh due to what the party’s parliamentary leader, Ghuas Bakhsh Mahar, called hesitation of sugar mills to lift the sugarcane crop for crushing or to pay its price.

ODD TASKS: The JUI-F move to get the proceedings cut short seemed odd as it came just before the house was to resume a debate on the Dec 16 Taliban suicide attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar that left 149 schoolchildren and teachers dead.

“There is no quorum, you can’t run the house (like this),” JUI-F member Mau­lana Amir Zaman shouted, forcing the deputy speaker to order a count of attendance, and later order adjournment after the return of several members who had walked out or had gone out for some other business failed to complete numbers.

Another oddity was a plea, immediately dismissed by the deputy speaker, by a member of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N, Mian Abdul Mannan, for de-seating Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan for being absent from the house for 40 consecutive days — as mandated by the Constitution.

The only business conducted in the house on Friday after the question hour was the adoption of a belated resolution of a Jamaat-i-Islami member, Aisha Syed, to mark the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) , Eid Miladun Nabi, which fell on Sunday, by pledging to adhere to his teachings and the presentation of a special report by the standing committee on information and broadcasting on how the government and media coordinate between themselves in what it called “close to war-time situation”.

MEDIA BEHAVIOUR: Some of the committee recommendations in a long, but poorly drafted, report called for the government and media to take terrorists, instead of each other, head-on, adhere to existing laws, an overall mindset change, capacity building at media houses and shutting down unlicensed television channels.

It advised media stakeholders to take guidance from “international best practices, such as BBC editorial guidelines, the British Terrorism Act and guidelines of Unesco-Commonwealth Broadcasting Association for building better codes of ethical conduct and provide insurance schemes for staff activities their routine assignments.

Some other from a total of 27 recommendations called for penalising individual journalists in both print and electronic media first and foremost in case of violations, guarding against glorifying terrorists and exercise of caution in live coverage of incidents.

Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2015

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