Experts say delaying no-trust vote may invoke Article 6

Say not calling session in 14 days or proroguing it without no-trust proceedings amount to abrogating Constitution

ISLAMABAD:

Legal experts said on Saturday that not calling the requisitioned session of the National Assembly within the stipulated time or proroguing the session without initiating the proceedings of the no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Imran Khan would attract Article 6 (high treason) of the Constitution on the National Assembly speaker.

The experts said that any deliberate delay in summoning the session would lead to a constitutional impasse amid the on-going political turmoil and warned that the situation would further aggravate if Speaker Asad Qaiser prorogued the session without starting the proceedings on the no-trust motion.
The joint opposition submitted the no-confidence motion against the prime minister and the requisition for summoning the National Assembly session in the National Assembly Secretariat on March 8. Since the filing of the motion, political temperatures had risen sharply.

On Saturday, the political temperature reached to the boiling point where the opposition parties threatened that they would hold sit-in in the National Assembly if the Speaker didn’t call the session on Monday, March 21, and initiated the proceeding on the no-confidence motion. “Not calling the session within 14 days after it is requisitioned or proroguing the session without taking up the no-confidence motion would amount to abrogating the Constitution and would attract Article 6,” Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) President Ahsan Bhoon told The Express Tribune.

“The speaker is bound to convene the session within 14 days [of filing of the motion], come what may,” the SCBA president said while commenting on the speculations that the speaker was only bound to call the session but it could be convened on a later date. He also laughed off at the rumours that 14-day period was only for calling the session but not convening the same in the period.

Also read: In about-face, joint opposition retracts threat to disrupt OIC moot

On proroguing the session without any proceedings on the motion, Bhoon said that if that was allowed then the motion would never get through the assembly as the speaker would repeat the exercise whenever the session was convened. “High treason applies on a military dictator if he abrogates the Constitution; it is attracted on a court for subverting the same and, similarly, the speaker can be tried for high treason under Article 6 if he violates the Constitution,” Bhoon said.

Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT) President Ahmed Bilal Mehboob also shared the same views. He said that convening the session within 14 days was a constitutional requirement and if anyone subverted a Constitutional provision, would face the Article 6.

The PILDAT president explained that the assembly session had to be summoned by the speaker within 14 days of the receipt of the requisition “at such time and place as he thinks fit” under Article 54 (3) of the Constitution. This, he said, clarified that it was not necessary to convene the National Assembly session but at any time and place within the prescribed time.

On prorogation of the session before initiating the no-confidence proceedings, Mehboob referred to Section 37 (8) of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the National Assembly, 2007. Section 37 (8) states: “The assembly shall not be prorogued until the motion is disposed of or, if leave is granted, the resolution has been voted upon.”

Also read: Opposition threatens to block OIC moot if no-trust vote delayed

According to Article 54, a session of the National Assembly can be requisitioned if at least 25% of the members sign it, following which the speaker has a maximum of 14 days to summon the session. Once the assembly was in session, the rules say, the secretary will circulate a notice for the no-confidence resolution, which will be moved on the next working day.

From the day the resolution is moved, the rules add, it “shall not be voted upon before the expiry of three days, or later than seven days”. Therefore, the experts say, the speaker must call the lower house in session by March 22, while voting on the no-confidence motion must take place between three and seven days after the session is summoned.