Free healthcare bill gets Senate panel’s nod

Discusses bill seeking to make upper house budget recommendations binding on NA

ISLAMABAD:

A Senate panel has passed a constitutional amendment bill that seeks to declare the right to free medical treatment a basic fundamental right of every citizen.

Senator Sirajul Haq of the JI moved the Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2020 (Amendment of Article 25B) for consideration at a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Law and Justice on Monday.

Speaking on the occasion, Haq said healthcare is a basic necessity of every citizen and the state must provide free medical facilities along with free education. “Due to poverty, a large portion of our population cannot get medical treatment when they get ill,” he said.

PML-N’s Musadik Malik and Ayesha Raza Farooq and JUI-F’s Abdul Ghafoor Haideri seconded the bill. The federal secretary told the committee that the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Finance had not submitted their feedback on the bill. The committee, however, gave the nod to the bill.

The committee also discussed the Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2020 (Amendment of Article 140) introduced by the committee’s chairman, Javed Abbasi.

Abbasi told the members that the bill seeks to give constitutional cover to the post of advocate general of the Islamabad High Court (IHC). “Right now, there is no legal basis for the post, which was created through an executive order,” he said.

The committee members supported the bill in principle but the decision on the bill was deferred till the next meeting so that input from Ministry of Interior can also be considered.

The panel also considered in detail the Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2020 (Amendment of Article 73).
The bill seeks to amend 73(1)(A) making it binding on the government to incorporate at least 20% of the Senate’s budget recommendations in the final budget statement, passed by the National Assembly.

The movers observed that over the years senators have been working hard every year to study the budget statement and propose projects and schemes in different areas but none of those recommendations see the light of the day because they are not included by the government.

The committee also gave the nod to the Islamabad High Court (Amendment) Bill, 2020 also introduced by Senator Javed Abbasi after a detailed discussion. The bill calls for omission of the words “from the provinces and other territories of Pakistan” from Section 3(1).

Discussion was also held on the Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2020 (Amendment of Article 253A) introduced by Senator Mushtaq Ahmed and the Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2020 (Amendment of Article 100) introduced by Senator Rukhsana Zuberi.

The meeting attended by a number of senators including Ayesha Raza Farooq, Musadik Malik, Sana Jamali, Zeeshan Khanzada, Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, Manzoor Ahmed, Kalsoom Parveen, Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, Muhammad Akram and Shafiq Tareen.