ISLAMABAD, Oct 4: With the Supreme Court aggressively pursuing parliamentarians holding dual nationality, the government is considering to move a bill in the National Assembly.

Insiders close to the development told Dawn that the coalition partners were seriously considering a proposal to get a bill in favour of holders of dual nationality adopted during the National Assembly session beginning on Friday.

If the plan on which legal experts of the coalition partners are actively working materialises, Law Minister Farooq H. Naek will present the bill. The government needs a simple majority to get the bill through and this will not be a problem for the ruling coalition.

A federal minister said an amendment was moved in the Senate on July 10 because the PPP had no objection to holders of dual nationality being members of legislatures.

“Since a two-third majority in the two houses of parliament is needed for an amendment to the Constitution and the government did not have it, therefore, couldn’t press ahead with it,” he said.

The coalition partners have a two-third majority in the Senate but they fall short of the required number (228 MNAs) in the National Assembly.

“The move which at the moment is being discussed within the coalition is, therefore, to take up a simple bill, instead of an amendment,” the minister said.

Insiders said the MQM and PML-Q were pressing the PPP leadership hard for the legislation because they were in favour of Pakistanis holding nationality of another country to become members of parliament.

The MQM has already moved a separate bill in the National Assembly.

Talking to Dawn, Senator Kamil Ali Agha, chief spokesperson for the PML-Q, said his party was in favour of dual nationality Pakistanis to join politics and become part of parliament and provincial assemblies, but with a caveat. And that is that if a person carrying two passports is elected he/she should not be allowed to hold any constitutional position, such as prime minister, chief minister, ministers etc, unless he/she renounces his/her foreign citizenship.

“If picked for such a position, the legislator should first renounce his foreign citizenship before taking oath,” Mr Agha explained.

When contacted, former senator and constitutional expert S.M. Zafar said the government had made a similar mistake when it passed the contempt of court bill in July this year to provide immunity to the prime minister which the Supreme Court shot down.

“If sense prevails the government shouldn’t go for this option because the Supreme Court will again have no option but to rule against such a bill,” said Mr Zafar.

Since the Supreme Court had already ruled against the parliamentarians holding dual nationality the move would not be acceptable to it, he said.

Senators Aitzaz Ahsan and Raza Rabbani expressed strong reservations when the government moved an amendment in the Senate in favour of holders of dual nationality.

Talking to Dawn, a senior PPP leader said since all three major coalition partners – PPP, PML-Q and MQM – were in favour of holders of dual nationality becoming members of parliament “we have no issues to push the bill through parliament”. Only the ANP is against it.

When it was pointed out that the bill would put further stress on the already strained relations between the government and the judiciary, he argued this was an issue for parliament to decide and not the courts.

According to a source, President Asif Ali Zardari and MQM chief Altaf Hussain, who recently met in London, had agreed to get a law in favour of holders of dual nationality adopted.