The constitutional committee which met at the President’s Chamber at the fourth floor of the Parliament House, was presided over by National Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain.
The committee had decided to hold indepth talks on all seven disputed points which were identified in the first Govt-Opposition meeting last week.
It was decided that the constitutional package prepared by the committee will be given a final approval in another meeting of the heads of Opposition and ruling coalition parties to be chaired by Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali.
The committee has been tasked to prepare a comprehensive constitutional package by thrashing out differences on contentious articles of the LFO which, after the approval of the parties concerned, will be put before parliament for assent by a two-thirds majority.
It was unanimously decided by the participants that there would be no regular press briefings at the end of daily meetings and instead a joint statement will be issued at the conclusion of each days’s deliberations.
The committee started discussions around 11am and concluded at 4.30pm and decided to resume its proceedings at 3pm on Tuesday.
Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, deputy parliamentary leader of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) and a member of the constitutional committee, read out the joint statement after the meeting to the newsmen waiting in the Speaker’s Chamber.
Those who attended the meeting from the government side were: Senator S.M. Zafar, PML-Q; Dr Sher Afgan, PPP- Patriots; Riaz Peerzada, N.A.; Sen Abdur Razzaq Thaeem, PML-F; and Syed Sufwanullah, Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM).
The combined opposition was represented by Hafiz Hussain Ahmed and Liaquat Baloch, MMA; Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan, PPP; Sen Lateef Khosa, PPP Parliamentarians; and Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, PML-Nawaz.
The joint statement said: “The constitutional committee will be provided copies of all laws and ordinances which have been issued after October 1999 for their scrutiny.
“The members deliberated at length amendments to Article 41(7) of the LFO which pertained to referendum 2002 and allowed the president to retain the post of the Chief of the Army Staff as well.
“The meeting also discussed the contentious Article 58(2)b of the Constitution which has also been enacted through the LFO.
“The committee held its meeting in an atmosphere of complete understanding and it was mutually agreed that in the first stage, the seven contentious points of the LFO and other issues will be discussed and in the end complete recommendations will be submitted before the heads of political parties at a meeting to be chaired by Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali which will give a final approval to these recommendations.”
Mr Baloch, a member of the committee, later told Dawn that talks were going on satisfactorily after the government conceded that the LFO was a controversial document which could not become part of the Constitution unless it was approved by parliament.