Opposition senators take aim at govt over ordinances

The opposition in the Senate slammed the government on Wednesday, accusing it of facilitating convicted Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav after the International Court of Justice Review Ordinance was introduced in the house.

Six different ordinances, including Public Private Partnership Authority Ordinance, Public Procurement Regulatory Authority Amendment Ordinance 2020, Reorganisation of Companies Amendment Ordinance 2020 were introduced by the government in the upper house.

The opposition, including the two major parties the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), were critical of the government’s ordinance on Jadhav. “Our strings are now pulled by the world powers, while parliament is being ignored,” said Raza Rabbani.

Rabbani and other opposition members, including Sherry Rehman and Mushahidullah Khan asked why the ordinances were issued when the house was in session. An ordinance was issued whenever the government wanted a law, Rehman said, adding that no one wanted NRO from the government.

Mushahidullah Khan termed it an attack on parliament. “Issuing the ordinance means we don’t recognise parliament,” Khan said. He also criticised the law minister, who defended the issuance of the ordinances.

Naseem told the house that 80% of the ICJ ruling was in favour of Pakistan. He added that it was the PML-N government, which went to the ICJ on Jadhav issue. He also requested the lawmakers to support the government on the bill pertaining to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

Earlier, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan introduced the Anti-terrorism (Amendment) Bill, 2020 (Amendment in sections 2, 11O and insertion of section 11OOO of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997) and the United Nations (Security Council) (Amendment) Bill, 2020.

The minister requested the chair for immediate tabling of the motions to pass the bills for fulfilling the international obligations as these legislative proposals were also passed by the National Assembly on July 29, 2020.

However, Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani referred the bills to the Standing Committee on Law and Justice for deliberation. Sanjrani said that a meeting of the committee would be held on Thursday (today) which would submit its report after a thorough review of the bills.

The Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Bill, 2020 aims to fulfil obligation of the FATF to exclude Pakistan name from the grey list while the United Nations (Security Council) (Amendment) Bill, 2020 aimed at ensuring effective implementation on the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).