THE government has done well to push for a consensus with the opposition parties to resolve the stalemate over the chairmanship of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). The urgency of breaking the deadlock is evident. The PTI leadership has repeatedly declared that it is not prepared to follow the practice of reserving the chairmanship of the PAC for the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly. This has resulted in delays in constituting the National Assembly’s standing committees due to the opposition’s insistence on first settling the PAC matter.

The present effort to resolve the issue was disclosed by the federal information minister some days ago when he said that the government had requested the National Assembly speaker, Asad Qaiser, and Defence Minister Pervaiz Khattak (the latter is emerging as the government’s main troubleshooter), to persuade the opposition parties to arrive at a compromise.

While disclosing this welcome initiative the information minister also expressed his opinion that the speaker should go ahead with the formation of standing committees without the representation of opposition members. It would have been better if he had kept this opinion to himself because a threat to bypass the opposition detracted from the conciliatory gesture. In addition, the valuable principles underlying the system of standing committees were apparently ignored.

The first and the most widely recognised function of standing committees still is to process legislative proposals, examine their merits and demerits, and suggest improvements. Since most of the bills are drafted by the executive, the relevant standing committees add to them parliament’s second opinion and thus bring the legislation a bit closer to the will of the people.

The arguments offered for not accepting the present leader of the opposition as PAC head are not tenable.

But a more important objective in Pakistan’s context is to break from the system of majoritarian rule, which is being rejected by democratic opinion the world over as a form of tyranny, and move towards participatory democracy. The central idea, which is quite easy to appreciate, is that by accommodating the various opposition groups in policymaking mechanisms, especially in the field of lawmaking, the government moves forward on representative and good governance.

It was as a step towards participatory and a more representative government that the practice of accepting the leader of the opposition as chairman of the PAC was started (in accordance with a provision of the Charter of Democracy signed by Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif) after the 2008 general election, Nisar Ali Khan, the leader of the opposition, was chosen as the head of the PAC.

Likewise, after the 2013 general election, Khursheed Ahmad Shah, the leader of the opposition, became the PAC chairman. Regardless of the way the arrangement has worked, it has laid the foundation of a sound convention aimed at the consolidation of democratic norms.

The PTI chairman has an extremely strong aversion to anything done by the rival parties, especially the PPP and PML-N. He is not happy with the 18th Amendment, although it is a step towards realising the ideal of a genuine federation. He has denounced the Charter of Democracy as a muk-muka (a dirty bargain) between the PPP and PML-N, although it marks an attempt to adopt a path different from that of “the militaristic and regimented approach of Bonapartist regimes”, a cause the PTI cannot possibly disown. Here is a fit case for a U-turn by the prime minister because undoing the18th Amendment could lead to repudiation of the entire 1973 Constitution except for the amendments made by Gen Ziaul Haq. But then he will be vowing allegiance to Ziaul Haq who was among the worst sinners in the country’s history because he not only committed treason as defined in Article 6 but also imposed on Pakistan a constitution of his anti-democratic thinking.

Moreover, the arguments offered for not accepting the present leader of the opposition as head of the PAC are not tenable.

The first argument is that the leader of the opposition stands disqualified from becoming head of PAC because of the allegations of corruption against him. But so long as he does not lose his seat in the National Assembly this argument cannot be advanced.

The second argument is that as the head of the PML-N, the leader of the opposition will not be able to make a fair assessment of the conduct of the previous government, of which he was a prominent member. The same argument can be used against making a pro-government person the PAC head. Besides, the official plea is based on the assumption that the PAC chairman will always be able to override the opinions of the committee members who will include members of the ruling party and its supporters

The only appropriate conclusion therefore can be to develop the reservation of the chairmanship of the Public Accounts Committee for the leader of the opposition into a convention that should be accepted by all parties.

Healthy democratic conventions are needed to overcome the problems the standing committees have been facing. A few examples of these problems will make the situation clearer.

After the Federal Shariat Court had struck down life imprisonment as an alternative punishment for blasphemy a bill was moved in the National Assembly for making the required amendment in Section 295 C of the Penal Code. The standing committee observed that the section was vague and suggested a study of the practice in such cases in other Muslim countries (before amending Section 295 C). The recommendation was ignored and it was declared an official secret.

A Senate standing committee took a long time to approve a bill to outlaw corporal punishment because some sociocultural values could be ignored.

A Senate standing committee held extended deliberations on the bill to deal with cybercrimes but all attempts to remove the flaws in the bill failed.

For strengthening parliamentary democracy, Pakistan needs not only to protect the few conventions that have survived political degeneration but also to develop new and healthy conventions.

Published in Dawn, November 29th, 2018