To ‘discuss’ Accountability Bill: PML-N demands standing committee’s meeting
A requisition has been submitted by the Committee on Law and Justice.
ISLAMABAD:
Expressing fears for the fate of Holder of Public Office (Accountability) Bill 2009, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Friday demanded that the government convene a meeting of the relevant standing committee where the bill has been in cold storage for the past thirty months.
“We demanded a meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs with a one point agenda: holding discussions over the accountability bill,” confirmed MNA Anusha Rehman Khan of the PML-N while talking to The Express Tribune.
The application has been submitted by all four PML-N members of the standing committee. According to legislative procedure, once a requisition is submitted the government is bound to convene a meeting within 14 days.
The legislator said that the committee had to deliberate upon the bill in its October 27 meeting, but the meeting was postponed.
It had been removed from the agenda of the October 21 meeting too, due to the death of Begum Nusrat Bhutto, Anusha Rehman added.
While commenting on the pre-planned removal of the bill, she said “The day the bill was removed from the agenda, we felt that the government did not want to discuss the bill. Therefore, it was important for us to ask for a meeting of the committee.”
The government, on the other hand, blames the PML-N for delaying its presentation of the bill because of the dissenting notes submitted by the four PML-N members.
The PML-N has made it clear that the party would not withdraw its dissenting notes and the government should put the bill before house for the voting motion.
It has been insisting that the head of the NAC should be a sitting judge of the Supreme Court whereas the draft of the law suggests that the office can be held “either by a sitting judge, or a retired judge or any person qualified to be a judge of the Supreme Court”.
The party had also disagreed on the clause of the earlier draft bill too which said that the NAC could not carry out investigations into crimes committed before 1985.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 19th, 2011.
Expressing fears for the fate of Holder of Public Office (Accountability) Bill 2009, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Friday demanded that the government convene a meeting of the relevant standing committee where the bill has been in cold storage for the past thirty months.
“We demanded a meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs with a one point agenda: holding discussions over the accountability bill,” confirmed MNA Anusha Rehman Khan of the PML-N while talking to The Express Tribune.
The application has been submitted by all four PML-N members of the standing committee. According to legislative procedure, once a requisition is submitted the government is bound to convene a meeting within 14 days.
The legislator said that the committee had to deliberate upon the bill in its October 27 meeting, but the meeting was postponed.
It had been removed from the agenda of the October 21 meeting too, due to the death of Begum Nusrat Bhutto, Anusha Rehman added.
While commenting on the pre-planned removal of the bill, she said “The day the bill was removed from the agenda, we felt that the government did not want to discuss the bill. Therefore, it was important for us to ask for a meeting of the committee.”
The government, on the other hand, blames the PML-N for delaying its presentation of the bill because of the dissenting notes submitted by the four PML-N members.
The PML-N has made it clear that the party would not withdraw its dissenting notes and the government should put the bill before house for the voting motion.
It has been insisting that the head of the NAC should be a sitting judge of the Supreme Court whereas the draft of the law suggests that the office can be held “either by a sitting judge, or a retired judge or any person qualified to be a judge of the Supreme Court”.
The party had also disagreed on the clause of the earlier draft bill too which said that the NAC could not carry out investigations into crimes committed before 1985.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 19th, 2011.