ISLAMABAD, Oct 26: The government on Saturday night made some politically significant amendments to the Legal Framework Order (LFO) and Qualification to Hold the Public Office allowing those former prime ministers and chief ministers, who had twice held these position in the past during interim governments, to again contest for the coveted slots .
In all, President Gen Pervez Musharraf promulgated eight ordinances including Qualification to Hold Public Office (Amendment) Order, 2002, under which those individuals who had twice held the office of prime minister or the chief minister as caretakers would have no legal bar for contesting these offices for a third time.
In the Qualification to Hold Public Office Order 2002 (Chief Executive’s Order No 19 of 2002), in Article 2, this explanation has been made: For the purpose of this Article the expression “held the office of the Prime Minister or that of a Chief Minister of a province” shall not include the office held as a Caretaker Prime Minister or a Caretaker Chief Minister.”
NSC MEETINGS: In another ordinance called the Legal Framework (Second Amendment in Chief Executives Order No 24) Order, 2002, an amendment has been made in the provision regarding convening of a session of National Security Council.
The word “regularly” was added and the words “within the time frame indicated by him,” were omitted from the Clause 3 of Article 152-A.
After the amendment it would now read as: “Meetings of the National Security Council may be regularly convened by the President either in his discretion, or on the advice of the prime minister, or when requested by any of its member.”
An amendment was also made to the article 59 which pertained to the election of the Senate. The amendment of LFO in the schedule reads: “(1) in column (1), in serial number 5 relating to Article 59, in column (3), in clause (1), in sub-clause (b), the words - ‘by direct and free vote’ - shall be omitted and shall be deemed to have always been so omitted.
The ordinances were issued by the government late on Saturday night. Copies of these amendments were also not made available to the national press and only state-owned news agencies were provided with the text of amendments.