Vote of legislation: Over a third of senators move resolution to repeal NAB ordinance

Resolution signed by 38 senators is likely to be passed next week

ISLAMABAD: More than a third of the Senate’s members have signed a resolution to repeal the National Accountability Amendment Ordinance (NAAO) 2017 that the president promulgated last week to disqualify from public office those who have availed plea bargains and voluntary return options.

The move has ‘surprised’ the government which has said that any step towards disapproving the ordinance would allow people to go scot-free until parliament passes a bill to overcome lacunae in the accountability law.

If Senate passes the resolution, it will be the third time in less than two years when the opposition-controlled upper house of parliament has struck down a presidential ordinance. Earlier, it rejected the PIA Amendment Ordinance and the Companies Ordinance 2016.

Thirty-eight senators, from both opposition parties and the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s coalition partners, have signed a resolution to disapprove NAAO, Senator Saleem Mandviwalla told The Express Tribune on Friday. He said the signatories are affiliated with the Pakistan Peoples Party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Awami National Party and Muttahida Qaumi Movement, and some of them hail from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

“We, the undersigned members of the Senate of Pakistan, wish to move the resolution under Article 89(2)(a)(ii) read with rule 145(2) of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Senate, 2012,” states the text of the resolution.

“It is the unanimous position of everyone that when parliament is in session, there is no point to introduce or amend a law through a presidential ordinance,” said Senator Mandviwalla. He said that the Senate is expected to approve the resolution next week.

The Senate requires at least a third of its 104 members to sign a resolution to disapprove an ordinance.

Mandviwalla said that the resolution had been moved due to objections over bypassing of parliament, although his party was also unhappy with the content of the ordinance.

President Mamnoon Hussain promulgated NAAO last week to bring changes in the clauses governing provisions of plea bargain and voluntary return. After these amendments, beneficiaries of both kinds of deals will be barred from holding public office for life.

According to the amendments, both plea bargain and voluntary return agreements would require the approval of a court, unlike in the past when only plea bargain deals were sent to the accountability courts concerned for approval, while voluntary returns required approval of the NAB chairman only. Those who availed the voluntary return facility were not disqualified and retained their offices after serving a ten-year ban. The government has introduced the ordinance in the Senate to make it an act of parliament.

“It is surprising that opposition senators have moved a resolution to disapprove the ordinance even though most of them have expressed reservations against plea bargains and voluntary returns,” Minister of State for IT Anusha Rehman, who was part of the team that drafted the ordinance.

She said a parliamentary committee was also working to improve the law governing NAB. She feared that by the time the committee would finish its work, many people would have gone scot-free by striking such deals.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 14^th, 2017.