ISLAMABAD: Minister for Climate Change Zahid Hamid was elected unopposed chairman of the special parliamentary committee constituted by the National Assembly speaker to review the drafts of six bills, including the controversial bill seeking to convert Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) into a limited company.

Mr Hamid, who has been functioning as the de facto law minister in the PML-N government, was elected chairman of the “Committee on the Joint Sitting on Bills” during a meeting here on Thursday which was attended by seven of its 10 members.

Talking to Dawn after his election, Mr Hamid said he had assured the members that their “positive and constructive” suggestions and amendments would be welcomed and incorporated into the bills.

“I will try to carry out the committee’s work with consensus,” he said, expressing the hope that the committee would be able to finalise its recommendations within the stipulated time and present them before the joint sitting of parliament on April 11.

The climate change minister says constructive proposals of members will be incorporated in the bills

Mr Hamid, who is also heading a sub-committee of the parliamentary committee on electoral reforms, said the first formal meeting of the committee to review the bills would be held on March 29. The meetings, he said, would be open for media.

He expressed the hope that the committee would come up with unanimous recommendations for all the bills, including the PIA bill, which had brought the government and the opposition face to face since December, when the government had initially imposed the law through a presidential ordinance.

The ordinance was “disapproved” by the opposition-dominated Senate, forcing the government to take advantage of its numerical strength in the National Assembly and convene the joint session to get it passed.

Initially, the government had planned to convene the joint sitting only to consider the PIA bill, but it had to include the five other bills in the agenda after the Senate passed a resolution and its chairman, Raza Rabbani, directed the government to consider those bills in the joint sitting as well which had been passed by the Senate and not by the National Assembly.

Thursday’s meeting was attended by PML-N’s parliamentary leader in the Senate Mushahidullah Khan, Minister for Commerce Khurram Dastagir Khan, Syed Naveed Qamar of the PPP, Asad Umar of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, Dr Farooq Sattar of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and PML-N’s Rana Muhammad Afzal Khan.

PPP’s Saeed Ghani, National Party’s Hasil Bizenjo and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman could not attend the meeting.

There were six bills on the agenda for the joint sitting of parliament that had been passed by the Senate but which could not be passed by the National Assembly within the stipulated 90 days. The PIA conversion bill had been passed by the National Assembly but rejected by the Senate.

Of the seven bills, the government had managed to get only the Gas (Theft Control and Recovery) Bill, 2014 passed from the house. The bill provides for prosecution of cases of gas theft and other offences relating to gas and provide a procedure for recovery of arrears.

Besides the PIA bill, the other five bills that the committee is set to review are: the Emigration (Amendment) Bill 2014, the Civil Servants (Amendment) Bill 2014, the Anti-Rape Laws (Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill 2015, the Anti-Honour Killing Laws (Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill 2015 and the Privatisation Commission (Second Amendment) Bill 2015.

Published in Dawn, March 25th, 2016