ISLAMABAD, June 6: The government told the Senate on Monday it was only discretionary and not mandatory for President Pervez Musharraf to call a joint sitting of parliament and address it at the start of each parliamentary year. But Pakistan Muslim League president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain offered in the National Assembly and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Khan Niazi in the Senate to arrange a joint sitting if the opposition was prepared to hear the president’s address with decorum.

The PML president made the offer to set a date for a joint sitting if the opposition was prepared to hear the president after opposition parties staged a token walkout to protest mainly against the president’s reluctance to call the sitting and the government’s failure to secure a National Finance Commission award about provincial share in federal revenues for the third year running.

The president’s first address to a joint sitting in January last year was greeted with noisy protests.

Replying to similar opposition objections in the Senate later, Mr Niazi said the constitutional provision about calling the joint sitting was not mandatory because it had no punitive clause.

“The president has the sole discretion whether to address (the joint sitting) or not,” said the minister, whose argument was supported by PML senator Khalid Ranjah, a former law minister.

Clause (3) of the constitution’s article 56 says: “At the commencement of the first session after each general election to the National Assembly and at the commencement of the first session of each year the president shall address both houses assembled together and inform the Majlis-e-Shoora (parliament) of the causes of its summons.”

Mr Niazi said the president could come to address a joint sitting if the opposition guaranteed a solemn behaviour. “But they are saying they will not allow him to address,” he added.