LAHORE, March 20: The Punjab has pointed out two significant constitutional and legal flaws in the draft Police Ordinance, 2002, besides questioning it’s status as a federal law, leading to the postponement of its approval by the federal cabinet in its meeting at Islamabad on Wednesday.

“Legal and constitutional complications and flaws in the ordinance drafted by the National Reconstruction Bureau have made it a straitjacket law. If enforced in its present shape, it will create many problems in its implementation as it has no flexibility to cater to future needs which is why the federal cabinet has deferred a decision on it,” sources claimed.

“The NRB has given us another straitjacket law, that is, the Local Government Ordinance, 2001, under which district governments have been established, and the government is still unable to overcome the related legal and administrative problems,” the sources said.

According to the sources, the first flaw pointed out by the Punjab is the inclusion of the substantive laws like the PPC (Pakistan Penal Code) and CrPC (Criminal Procedure Code) in the proposed ordinance.

They said under the standardized procedure of legislation, such substantive laws were not incorporated in the special laws so that any flaw, if any, in them would be rectified in future. But since this had not been done in this case, it would be difficult to plug the loopholes.

The sources said the rules of business which were formed under the Constitution for all the laws had also been included in the proposed police ordinance which the province had termed another major legal and constitutional flaw in the draft law.

According to the Constitution, acts or laws were not supposed to be beaten by the rules of business. These were framed by the provincial governments for the allocation and transaction of their business, exercizing the authority for the Constitution, the sources said.

The sources said the rules and regulations were always prepared under the provision of an act but in this case these had been included in the police ordinance, making it a straitjacket law. This had been done in violation of the Constitution, they insisted. They said the laws were general in nature and the rules and regulations specific. The former were considered the spirit and the latter details because “it is presumed that rules can be amended by the executive and the law by the legislature.”

The inclusion of the rules in the main law would eliminate flexibility in the act, making it hard to cater to the future needs, the sources maintained.

They said Punjab’s objection to the status of the ordinance as the federal law was also related to the scheme of things as provided in the Constitution.

The Police Act of 1861 was given by the British Governor General of India and its application in provinces was subject to the “day they will implement it.” Then, under the 1973 Constitution the police act was the subject of the provincial governments.

They said if it was accepted that the police act was a provincial law, “you cannot have any federal institution under it.”

The sources said the proposed ordinance would lead to erosion of the control of the state over the police that have already managed to wriggle out of the devolution plan and the defunct district magistrate.

The proposed law provided that all SPs would be posted directly by the IGP which under the present system was the authority of the chief minister.

Then, they said, another flaw was that the federal government would not be able to send the IGPs of its choice to the provinces.