PRIME Minister Imran Khan is said to be irked by the parliamentary rule of ‘production orders’, a convention which allows parliamentarians under arrest to be produced in the house after being summoned by the speaker.

After a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information and Broadcasting Firdous Ashiq Awan said that Mr Khan has called for revisiting National Assembly rules relating to production orders for parliamentarians who are currently facing money-laundering and corruption charges — in fact, some have asked why the rule exists at all in Pakistan when Western democracies make no such provision.

Drawing from the 1973 Constitution, the rules governing production orders have been secured with the intention of protecting the rights of the people by enabling their representatives to execute the functions of their office.

To understand their existence, it is important to acknowledge the context in which they were formulated.

In our political circus, it is not unusual for the government of the day to make accusations of financial mismanagement against opposition parties.

Unlike democracies which have evolved over decades, Pakistan’s fledgling democracy is still very much plagued by the phenomenon of politically motivated cases against sitting lawmakers — charges which often do not result in a conviction.

Such tactics have routinely been employed to weaken the numbers of the opposition in parliament and preclude the participation of opposition lawmakers in the house.

For this reason, parliamentary rules allow for the issuance of production orders that permit parliamentarians to fulfil their responsibilities towards the electorate — a convention honoured by Assembly speakers of the past who withstood pressure from their own parties.

In the mid-1990s, Yousuf Raza Gilani risked displeasing his party when he issued production orders for PPP critics — including Sheikh Rashid Ahmed.

The Punjab Assembly, too, amended its rules in January this year to empower its speaker to issue such orders to allow for the production of Aleem Khan, a senior PTI lawmaker who was in NAB custody at the time.

Although it is no secret that Mr Khan has serious reservations against certain opposition parliamentarians, as prime minister he should know better than to make retaliatory statements which put pressure on the speaker to not exercise his right to issue production orders for lawmakers — a situation which will be viewed as the executive encroaching on the powers of the legislature.

Perhaps this prerogative of the speaker can be revisited when the trend of accusations of rigging and corruption without convictions dies out in our country, or when the authorities investigating alleged corruption or election tampering are not marred by controversy.

Till that time comes, it is the duty of the National Assembly speaker to give the benefit of the doubt to the accused lawmakers in custody of the authorities.

In a healthy democracy, parliamentary rules ought to be respected, and not bent to suit the wishes of the executive.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2019