ISLAMABAD: A new consensus mode embraced by the government and the opposition in law-making seemed to be doing well as the National Assembly unanimously passed some important amendments in its rules of procedure on Friday, one of them for the removal of an opposition leader.
There was an exchange of mutual praise between the two sides for cooperating with each other when the house adopted 25 amendments, most of which were incidental to the landmark 18th Amendment of the Constitution passed by parliament in April.
One of them detailed the procedure for a proper election of one of the 243-seat lower house’s Muslim members as prime minister by the majority of the total membership replaced the previously less elaborate method of ‘ascertainment’ of a candidate’s majority.
But the mode of removing a leader of the opposition in the event of losing support of the majority of opposition members is besides what was necessitated by the 19th Amendment, and both sides gave credit to the present opposition leader, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan of the PML-N, for proposing what a PML-N member said was “in the finest traditions of democracy”.
WHEN A MAULANA DID OTHERWISE The move was obviously aimed at avoiding the repetition of a bitter experience of the previous Musharraf-era assembly, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, then leader of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal alliance of religious parties, was named opposition leader by then speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain, as a reward for the alliance’s support for the passage of a controversial 17th Amendment at the cost of the majority-supported PPP parliamentary leader Makhdoom Amin Fahim.
However, soon after the present National Assembly began its five-year term after the Feb 18, 2008, general elections, the ruling PPP’s Speaker Fehmida Mirza first named PML-Q parliamentary leader Chaudhry Pervez Elahi as opposition leader -- because of his party’s majority on the opposition benches when the PML-N was part of the PPP-led coalition government -- and then gave the office to Chaudhry Nisar after the PML-N left the government six months later and became the majority opposition party.
The JUI leader was not present in Friday’s sitting before the house was adjourned for a long weekend until Tuesday and nobody recalled his conduct in demanding and accepting the opposition leader’s slot without a required majority, while there was no way, no clear provision in the rules to undo a speaker’s choice.
The newly-inserted rule says that a majority of the opposition members could send a notice to the assembly secretary showing the opposition leader had lost the support of their support and nominating a new leader, after which the house speaker, if satisfied with the correctness of the plea, would be bound to remove an incumbent and declare their nominee as the new opposition leader.
It was the third day running of consensus in the house after the PML-N ended a boycott of an agenda-setting house business advisory committee on the opening day of the present session on Monday and assured cooperation if the government took it into confidence on its legislative programme.
The first show of unanimity after that came on Wednesday when the Constitution (Nineteenth Amendment) Bill, addressing most of the Supreme Court’s concerns about a new mode of appointing the superior judiciary, was passed by more than two-thirds majority of the house, which was denied unanimity of the present members by only one negative vote.
And then on Thursday, a government bill providing for the relief of bail to accused persons in case delay in trials was passed unanimously.
On Friday, PML-N’s usual legislative negotiator, Zahid Hamid, thanked PPP’s chief-whip and Religious Affairs Minister Khurhid Ahmad Shah and prime minister’s adviser Senator Raza Rabbani for sharing the draft of the proposed amendments in the rules with the opposition while proposing a couple of minor changes, which too were accepted by the government.
Mr Rabbani, while explaining the amendments in detail, acknowledged that the amendment providing for the removal of an opposition leader had come from the present incumbent.
It was also a sign of mutual accommodation that the opposition raised no objection when the chair adjourned the house for three days instead of the usual two-day weekend to facilitate PPP lawmakers to attend ceremonies on Monday to mark the third anniversary of the Dec 27, 2007, assassination of their party leader Benazir Bhutto.
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