ISLAMABAD, March 30: Speakers at a roundtable discussion have called for improving public access to parliament and asked the legislators and members of the civil society organizations to play their active role in this regard.
The discussion on "Improved Public Access to the Parliament" was organized by the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (Pildat) at the launching of a directory of the members of the 12th National Assembly here on Tuesday.
The directory, having profiles of MNAs, has been compiled by the Institute in collaboration with United Nations Development Fund (UNDP) and Department for International Development (DFID). The data has been published in Urdu, English and Sindhi languages.
The deputy speaker of the National Assembly, Sardar Mohammad Yaqub, was the chief guest on the occasion. Members of the treasury and opposition members and two former speakers took part in the discussion.
Speaking on the occasion, former speaker Syed Fakhar Imam said parliament would face a tough challenge when the bill on the proposed National Security Council (NSC) would be presented.
He feared that the NSC bill would sabotage the sovereignty of parliament. He said efforts to present a similar bill were also made during the Ziaul Haq era. Mr Imam called for reviving parliament's sovereignty and supremacy.
Another former speaker during the PPP government, Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani, regretted that there was no freedom of speech in the country. He said first parliamentarians should be allowed to have an access to parliament and then they should talk about the public access.
Without naming PML-N acting president Makhdoom Javed Hashmi, he said the chief of a major party and an MNA had been put behind the bars for holding a press conference. He further regretted that the speaker was not issuing production order despite strong protest and demands by the opposition.
"There had been past practices" when speakers issued production orders, he said, adding: "We should follow the past precedents." Mr Gillani said when an elected member was not being allowed to attend the sessions and when turncoats were sitting in assemblies then people felt that they were not being represented in parliament.
He called for strengthening the institutions. The judiciary, he said, was there only to interpret and not to give powers to an individual to amend the Constitution.
He regretted that for the past 15 months, there had been no standing committees. Quoting an example of India, Mr Gillani suggested to have two deputy speakers, one from treasury and one from opposition benches, in order to run the proceedings of the House smoothly.
He said both military and judiciary had their own systems of accountability. He said for accountability of parliamentarians there should be standing committees and public accounts committee.
"Why parliamentarians are being made accountable to National Accountability Bureau (NAB)?", he questioned. He also suggested the distribution of funds among members according to the votebank.
PML-Q Senator S M Zafar said in the past, parliaments had been functioning in isolation, as there was no interaction between the legislators and civil society organizations. He said in order to increase public access to parliament, the civil society needed to play a pro-active role. He also termed delay in the formation of standing committees as "unfortunate".
He said the chairman of a standing committee had great powers and he could summon any official before the committee. He said even a person could not be arrested if he was to appear before a committee. Therefore, he said for an efficient functioning of parliament, the members of standing committees and chairmen should play their role.
Syed Naveed Qamar of the PPP suggested that private sector should be approached for televising the proceedings of parliament. He said the state-run TV gave only one side of the story.
He regretted that both the Houses were functioning without the opposition leaders. He said there was a need for bringing issues to parliament through civil society organizations.
PPP MNA Sherry Rahman said the parliament was functioning in an arbitrary manner. She called for formalization of public access to the parliament through standing committees.
Dr Farooq Sattar of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) said feudals, military top brass and civil bureaucracy had been ruling the country for the past 55 years.
He called for bringing radical reforms in the political system. He said democracy needed to be delivered at the doorsteps and for that purpose there was a need for eradication of feudalism through genuine agricultural and land reforms.
Mr Sattar also called for giving autonomy to provinces. He said the centre should only have control over foreign affairs, defence and currency and the remaining subjects should be handed over to provinces.
Another MQM MNA Kanwar Khalid Younis said the parliamentary debate should be published very next day. He said on private members day bills were only presented from the opposition side.
He said he had submitted some bills regarding women laws and Hudood laws but it seemed that some elements in the government were not ready to annoy the religious parties and they had put the bills in cold storage. He also called for improving the paper quality on which the members were provided parliamentary debates.
Samia Raheela Qazi of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) said the parliamentarians would play their role when they would be convinced that parliament was a sovereign institution. At the moment, she said, decisions were not being taken in the parliament.
She claimed that the present parliament was being run by the opposition members alone as treasury members came to the House only to enjoy protocol which was evident from the attendance of the ruling MNAs in the ongoing debate on Gen Musharraf's address to the joint sitting.
She also mentioned difficulties being faced by new parliamentarians in understanding rules and procedures of the assembly. Bushra Rahman said there was a need that at least one parliament should be allowed to complete its tenure.