ISLAMABAD: Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani took the government to task on Wednesday for a delay in presenting an ordinance before the house and announced that he would hold a formal hearing on the matter for this “unconstitutional act”.

After Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Aftab Shaikh laid the National Command Authority (Amendment) Ordinance 2016 (Ordinance No 1 of 2016) as required by Article 89(2) of the Constitution, the Senate chairman drew the attention of the house that the government was laying the ordinance after 92 days of its promulgation.

Mr Rabbani regretted that the ordinance had been promulgated by the president on March 13 but it had been laid before the National Assembly on Tuesday, after 91 days, and after 92 days of its promulgation in the Senate.

The Senate chairman said that legislation was an important issue and parliament had been created for doing legislation. Reading out Article 89 of the Constitution, Mr Rabbani said that the president could promulgate the ordinance whenever there were extreme circumstances and if the National Assembly and the Senate were not in session.

Mr Rabbani said that under the Constitution any member of parliament could present a resolution to disapprove the ordinance. And by not presenting the ordinance for three months, the government had actually deprived the members of their right to disapprove the ordinance.

Later, when PPP’s Farhatullah Babar requested the chairman to refer the ordinance to the committee concerned, Mr Rabbani said that his hands were tied since the government had already laid the ordinance in the National Assembly in the form of a bill. Therefore, he said, he would refer it to the committee only when the assembly would pass it and send it to the upper house.

Speaking on the issue, Mr Babar alleged that the government had laid the ordinance in a “surreptitious manner” to amend the National Command Authority (NCA) Act.

Reading out extracts from the ordinance, Mr Babar said it sought to nullify court judgements and all existing laws applicable to employees of organisations under the NCA besides seeking unlimited funds for its functions beyond the purview of audit and without any oversight.

The PPP senator said that as a result of the amendment, all court orders and existing laws were rendered ineffective and non-applicable “unless approved by the federal government and published in the official gazette”.

He was of the opinion that the court judgements and laws had their own force and did not depend upon “approval of the government and publication in the gazette” for implementation.

By a simple device of withholding publication in the official gazette, he feared, the employees of the organisations under the NCA would be denied their rights accrued under court orders and applicable laws.

COMMITTEE’S REPORT: Senator Javed Abbasi of the ruling PML-N was to present a report as chairman of the standing committee on law and justice on the Constitution Amendment Bill 2016 introduced by PPP’s Babar Awan.

As soon as Mr Abbasi took the floor to present the report, Mr Rabbani asked him as to how the special assistant to the prime minister’s name had been mentioned in the report when he could not attend the meetings.

Mr Abbasi said that the officials of the law ministry had told the committee that the special assistant had the status of the minister of state.

However, Mr Rabbani observed that since the person had not been administered the oath as the minister of state he could not use the powers of minister.

He stopped Mr Abbasi from presenting the report and declared that he would hold a hearing on the matter.

CPEC ROUTE: PPP’s Taj Haider presented the interim report of the special committee of the house on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

A number of senators, mainly from smaller provinces, criticised the government for not initiating the work on the western route of the CPEC as agreed in multi-party conferences.

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2016