ISLAMABAD: Amid criticism for withdrawing the proposal to bring the superior judiciary and armed forces under the ambit of a new accountability law, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has come up with a justification that it took the decision to avoid a clash among institutions.

The ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), however, is keeping its cards close to its chest and has not yet expressed its opinion on the matter of enabling the proposed National Accountability Commission (NAC) to try judges and generals.

The legislation for the establishment of NAC has been pending in parliament since 2009.

A 20-member parliamentary committee was formed in January this year to revisit the National Accountability Ordinance 1999.

Says decision taken to avoid clash among institutions

The committee consisted of 13 members of the National Assembly and seven senators and was formed after the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) came under severe criticism from different quarters, especially over its power to drop cases in favour of plea bargains.

The committee constituted to overhaul the accountability law showed which political parties were not interested in bringing judges and generals under the jurisdiction of the NAC.

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) raised objections to the NAC bill, apparently to block the way of any legislation that would hold generals and judges accountable.

On Nov 2, the main opposition PPP also dropped its demand to include the superior judiciary and the army in the bill aimed at across-the-board accountability.

The PPP faced widespread criticism for dropping the proposal. However, Syed Naveed Qamar, the PPP’s parliamentary leader in the National Assembly, who was also a member of the committee, said this was not the right time for such legislation.

“At the moment, there is a rift among institutions and such an environment is not suitable for tabling such a proposal, as it may aggravate the situation. We need to keep the issue at a ‘manageable’ level and not let it go beyond limits. Therefore, it is necessary for us not to go in that direction,” he explained to mediapersons after attending a brief meeting on the proposed NAC.

He, however, suggested that since corruption was a provincial matter, provincial employees and organisations should be dealt by the provincial anti-corruption establishments and the accountability law may be limited to the employees of the federal government.

The convener of the committee, Law Minister Zahid Hamid said they were discussing sections related to the definition of public officeholders.

The PPP’s proposal, tabled by Senator Farhatullah Babar, was about the definition of public officeholders.

He suggested that judges of the Supreme Court, high courts as well as personnel of armed forces, including the services chiefs, may be added to the list of public officeholders.

As per the PTI’s proposal, the president, governors, prime minister, chairman Senate, speaker and deputy speaker of the National Assembly, federal ministers, ministers of state, attorney general and law officers appointed under the Central Law Officers Ordinance, advisers and special assistants to the prime minister, federal parliamentary secretaries, members of parliament, auditor general, political secretary, adviser or consultant to the prime minister, [person who] holds or has held a post or office with the rank or status of a federal minister or minister of state, chief minister, speakers and deputy speakers of provincial assemblies, provincial ministers, advisers and special assistants to the CM, provincial parliamentary secretaries, MPAs advocates general, additional advocates general, assistant advocates general and political secretary should be included under the definition of public officeholders.

Mr Qamar of the PPP gave another justification for excluding the superior judiciary and army from the ambit of accountability saying these institutions had their own mechanism for self-accountability.

Sources in the PML-N said unlike other political parties, the ruling party never announced its decision in public with regard to bringing judges and generals under the accountability law.

They said the party would make a decision after examining certain aspects and listening to different segments of society.

Legal circle have openly expressed concerns on a number of occasions over the futility of Article 209 under which a judge accused of misconduct faces trial proceedings before the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC).

Since 1973, SJC did not convict even a single judge for corruption. Recently, even serving judges facing proceedings before the SJC expressed concerns with regard to the trial procedure and one of them filed a petition for making the SJC proceeding public.

Likewise, the army proceeds against the personnel of armed forces for any allegation under the Pakistan Army Act (PAA). A recent resolution adopted by the Ex-Servicemen Legal Forum, an association of retired officers of military’s legal branch, noted that senior military officers sacked by former chief of army staff General Raheel Sharif were allowed to get all the post-retirement benefits.

Published in Dawn, November 7th, 2017