ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly interrupted its budget debate on Monday to extend the life, for another 120 days, of a presidential decree that amends the Pakistan Army Act to augment its existing provisions introduced early this year for speedy military trial of civilian terrorism suspects.

But the extension, by a resolution of the house, of the Pakistan Army (Amendment) Ordinance, 2015, necessitated by the parliament’s failure to adopt the decree as a bill within its original 120-day life, came amid a noisy furore and a protest walkout by the opposition Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM).

The MQM protested only on a procedural question, which found little favour from the rest of the house and was dismissed by both Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq and Deputy Speaker Murtaza Javed Abbasi. It was also marked by angry exchanges between the party’s deputy parliamentary leader Abdul Rashid Godail and Defence Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif before all party lawmakers walked out of the house for the rest of the day.

The presidential ordinance, issued in late February, was a follow-up of amendments made by parliament in the Constitution and the Pakistan Army Act, 1952, to provide for military court trial of civilian terrorism suspects for a period of two years as decided by an all-party conference convened by the prime minister in the wake of a terrorist attack on a Peshawar school.

Mr Godail’s objection to the moving of the resolution extending the life of the ordinance seemed based on a misunderstanding that a motion adopted by the house at the start of the budget debate to dispense with the question hour and calling attention notices until the passage of the budget also applied to government business like introduction of bills or resolutions.

Both the speaker and the deputy speakers, when chairing the house alternately, clarified that was not so.

The MQM’s members refused to budge even after Finance Minister Ishaq Dar tried to soothe tempers by explaining that the government was only meeting a constitutional requirement to save the ordinance from dying and the house majority had voted in favour of the resolution.

That prompted the defence minister to come rather hard on the MQM members for what he called their politically motivated opposition to the resolution, and, waving a copy of the day’s agenda, accused them of opposing the move because they feared “they may also be caught by the collar” or “put in the dock”.

Mr Godail was no less vehement as he said the minister’s outburst had “brought out of his inner self” and asked him not to behave like a “Punjabi minister” but “become a minister of Pakistan”.

“Who are you bhai (to threaten MQM)?” the MQM leader taunted Khawaja Asif and reminded him of some unspecified time when he said he was “running about to get a pardon”.

“He is talking of me while they themselves say one thing at sehri time and apologise at zuhar time,” retorted the minister.

Apparently referring to the Jan 2 APC where all parliamentary parties agreed to provide a constitutional cover to military court trials, the defence minister said “all these things were agreed upon at that time” as part of a National Action Plan to counter terrorism, but that in the past few months “they felt the danger they also could be caught by the collar”.

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2015

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