ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) continues to be on tenterhooks awaiting the passage of a crucial law that will allow the conduct of delimitation of constituencies on the basis of provisional census results as the Senate witnessed mysteriously low presence of lawmakers for the second consecutive sitting on Monday when the 24th constitutional amendment was on the agenda.

Sadar Azam Moosakhel of the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party, while speaking on a point of public importance, said pressure from some quarters was causing delay in the passage of the bill on delimitation.

Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani, however, stopped the senator from elaborating his apprehension, advising him to discuss the matter at parliamentary parties’ meeting.

Noticing that the number of senators present in the house was not only insufficient to get a constitutional amendment passed, but also lacked quorum required to proceeding with the business, Mr Rabbani asked leader of the house Raja Zafarul Haq what to do. Mr Haq sought deferment for two days, explaining that many members could not come after a two-day off — Saturday and Sunday.

The bill will now be placed on the agenda for the third time when the house meets on Wednesday at 3pm.

Most of the senators belonging to the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, Muttahida Qaumi Movement and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas have stayed away from the proceedings since Friday — the day the bill was brought to the upper house of parliament.

The total number of lawmakers present in the house on Monday was 59, but many of them started slipping away sensing that even their presence would not help get the bill passed as 69 senators are required to pass a constitutional amendment with a two-thirds majority in the 104-member house.

When the chairman asked the leader of the house what to do, only 23 members were present, with just seven on the opposition benches.

Senator Farhatullah Babar of the Pakistan Peoples Party, while speaking on a point of public importance, called for disbanding the Commission on Enforced Disappearances and replacing it with a new one having expert investigators as its members.

He spoke after Hafiz Hamdullah of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl said that although a missing cleric from Vehari had returned home, the identity of kidnappers remained a mystery that needed to be resolved.

“The identity of the kidnappers will never be known until the commission talked to the victims recovered, investigated their ordeal and registered FIRs against the perpetrators identified by them. The commission is vested with these powers under the law, but during the last six years of its existence it failed to do so,” Mr Babar regretted.

He said the commission took credit for having recovered over 2,000 missing persons over the past six years, but it had nothing to show by way of pursuing investigations or filing FIRs against individuals or institutions found involved in enforced disappearances.

He said the law had since been amended to empower the commission to make public its report directly without requiring the government’s approval and wondered what had prevented the commission from making its periodic reports public.

Senator Babar also called for making public the report of the first 2010 commission under the late Justice Mansoor Kamal which worked for only one year. “Six years is a long enough time for the commission and it is time to disband it altogether,” he said.

Speaking on the issue of investigation into the attack on journalist Ahmad Noorani, the PPP senator said that geofencing and CCTV cameras had reportedly failed to help in the probe. He said that investigating those who had alleged in the print and social media that the attack was linked to an affair with a female student might be helpful in reaching some conclusion.

Earlier, Hafiz Hamdullah slammed the cleric leading a sit-in in Islamabad for causing inconvenience to the people and using abusive language and said that when a religious scholar used such language, it gave a wrong impression about morality of ulema.

He said two main demands of the protesters were about resignation of the law minister and making public the report on a change made in the Khatm-i-Nubuwat declaration, wondering what was the harm in making the report public.

Professor Sajid Mir of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz opposed the proposal for making the report public, saying that it would endanger someone’s life.

Published in Dawn, November 21st, 2017