LAHORE: The Punjab Assembly on Wednesday ran through a heavy legislative agenda – passing nine laws, one ordinance and laying one report – as the opposition boycotted the proceedings against, what it called, “illegal legislation.”

“How can the government legislate when the committee concerned has neither been elected nor notified, nor business referred to them,” Iftikhar Chachar of the opposition asked. The opposition assault was led by Waris Kahloon who kept shouting at the top of his voice that it was “illegal” to make laws in such a manner.

“What kind of moral authority these laws would enjoy when their making is not according to the Constitution,” Waris kept insisting despite the Chair’s refusal to listen. The House Committee on the S&GAD (Services and General Administration Department) has not yet been notified. From where the Punjab government has got the House consent? The Opposition is being forced to shut up. How can it be called law when it does not enjoy backing of the House?

Hamza calls for tolerance, hate-free political discourse

Provincial Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs Raja Basharat, however, refused to budge: “Who says committees are not notified. Some of these have been and the rules clearly permit the House to make laws even in the absence of any report from the House Committee. The Opposition had resigned from committees, hoping to blackmail the government into abandoning legislation and crippling the government. We refuse to submit to this blackmail,” he asserted.

Undeterred, Kahloon wanted to know what about the committees which have not been made or notified. How can the government legislate in those areas. The Chair, however, allowed the Treasury to proceed further and the opposition, refusing to be part of the proceedings, walked out of the House – further clearing the way for the government.

In the next 40 minutes, the Treasury rushed through “Water Bill, Seized and Freezed Facilities,” Khal Panchayat Bill, Employees Social Security Bill, Workers Welfare Fund Bill, Aab-e-Pak Authority, Minimum Wages Bill, Regularization of Service Bill and Rawalpindi Women University Bill.

The Punjab Local Government (second amendment) Ordinance was laid before the House and so was Annual Report/Post Election Review.

Hamza Shahbaz Sharif who was in the House on “production order” – courtesy Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi – stood up to thank the Chair and pleaded for tolerance: “I can only thank the Chair for issuing my production order but also want to warn that politics is gradually turning into a hate-war. It needs to be checked. We must see why we have reached a stage where one has to die to prove his disease. Why space for common human causes like illnesses is shrinking by the day and expanding for mutual hatred? It needs to be deciphered.”

“The PML-N has been target of such taunts since (Pervez) Musharraf days, when the illness of my father (three-time chief minister Shahbaz Sharif) became topic of political opprobrium. Let us check this incendiary trend before it is too late,” he advised.

Raja Basharat was equally obliging when he stood up to respond to Hamza Shahbaz, saying the Punjab government provided the best possible medical facilities to former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and he acknowledged the effort.

“Let us resolve that politics would not be played on diseases in future,” he advised the House.

Published in Dawn, November 21st, 2019