Opposition divided on including PM’s name in ToRs

ISLAMABAD: The opposition appears to have developed cracks on its demand for including the prime minister’s name in the terms of reference (ToRs) for a proposed investigation into revelations in the Panama Papers that hundreds of Pakistanis, including three scions of the Sharif family, secreted their money in offshore tax havens.

“There are things that are legal and there are things that are political,” said a member of the parliamentary committee tasked to draft the ToRs for the proposed inquiry commission when asked about the opposition’s renewed demand for including the prime minister’s name in the ToRs.



Legally, the government’s stand is valid because a law cannot be person-specific, he told The Express Tribune on the condition that he would not be named in the report. “Politically, the opposition cannot afford to buy any such argument, no matter how legal.”

The Mutahidda Qaumi Movement (MQM) and the Awami National Party (ANP) are opposed to such politicisation of the issue by other opposition parties, especially by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI]. And
representatives of the two parties on the parliamentary committee have ‘expressed serious reservations’ over the demand for including the premier’s name in the ToRs.

The prime minister’s name was mentioned in the first draft of ToRs proposed by the joint opposition. But the government rejected the draft as ‘person-specific’. Later, the opposition offered to drop the premier’s name only if the government accepted the rest of the ToRs.

When the parliamentary committee met for the sixth time on Tuesday, the opposition again called for including the premier’s name in the new draft of ToRs. A day before the meeting, the joint opposition had had a consultative session at the residence of leader of the opposition in the Senate Aitzaz Ahsan.



“ANP and MQM members strongly opposed the idea saying it was against the fundamentals of law,” said one member of the committee who attended Tuesday’s meeting. “There is no precedent of a person-specific law in the world,” he added. “It’s a political gimmick that will lead to instability,” he said. “It’ll not ensure accountability but political mileage for one or two opposition parties.”

He claimed that even PTI’s Shah Mehmood Qureshi conceded the illegality of the demand. “Legally, it’s correct that no law can be person-specific but politically we [opposition] cannot afford to withdraw the prime minister’s name from our draft of ToRs,” he quoted Qureshi as saying at Tuesday’s meeting.

When contacted, Qureshi, however, claimed that the second draft of ToRs submitted by the opposition was unanimous as all parties, including the ANP and MQM, endorsed it. “All the opposition parties own that draft. Everything else is mere hypothesis,” he added.

A senior opposition leader said they had unanimously decided to drop the prime minister’s name in order to make the ToRs issue-specific rather than person-specific. He predicted that the MQM and ANP would soon publicly announce their support for the government’s stance over the matter.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 9^th, 2016.