ISLAMABAD, Sept 20: Opposition parties in the National Assembly on Monday protested against the conviction of former assembly speaker Yousaf Raza Gillani by a special court and staged a walkout after the ruling coalition refused to allow a debate on the matter.
Opposition members called the 10-year rigorous imprisonment announced by an accountability court in Rawalpindi on Saturday as an insult to the speaker's office and a breach of the house privilege. But three government ministers, who replied to the opposition charges, opposed a discussion on the matter on the ground that the house could not criticize a court decision and that the matter was subjudice.
All opposition members stormed out of the house in a token protest before Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain rejected the opposition points of order raised to agitate the issue.
While convicting Mr Gillani for allegedly making 300 illegal appointment in the National Assembly secretariat, the court also ordered him to pay a fine of Rs100 million or in default undergo an additional imprisonment of five years.
"Your predecessor has been sentenced to 15 years," Aitzaz Ahsan of the People's Party Parliamentarians (PPP), said to Chaudhry Amir Hussain as he led the opposition assault against the conviction and told him that the same could happen to him as well.
He said the matter was not subjudice because Mr Gillani had not yet filed an appeal against the sentence and that an accountability court could not be compared with the Supreme Court or a provincial high court that were protected against criticism.
"The speaker has been sentenced, your chair has been sentenced," Mr Ahsan told the speaker as he pleaded for a debate. But the speaker went by the opinion of Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Khan Niazi, Law and Justice Minister Wasi Zafar and Minister of State for Defence Zahid Hamid, against admitting the opposition move that they said was in violation of the constitution, law and house rules of procedure.
PML-N parliamentary leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said former Senate chairman Wasim Sajjad, now the leader of the house in the upper house, had been absolved of similar charges because he belonged to the ruling party.
Another PML-N member, Khwaja Mohammad Asif, said several ruling coalition members who faced corruption charges framed by the National Accountability Bureau were sitting in the house because of their 'bargaining' with the authorities. Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal's Liaquat Baloch called the sentence a 'political victimization' and said the speaker's office could not be left at the mercy of circumstances.