Yesterday, the last day of the session, the house was abuzz with the news that Punjab Governor Sardar Latif Khosa had returned all 19 bills recently passed by the Punjab Assembly without approval on the grounds that they contravened Articles 142 and 143 of the Constitution.
These articles stipulate the distribution of legislative powers between the provincial and federal legislatures. Article 143 states that if a bill passed by the provincial assembly is repugnant to a provision of an Act of Parliament, the law passed by Parliament will reign supreme.
The governor found the bills repugnant to laws passed by the National Assembly in the devolution of powers under the 18th Amendment. According to one PPP constitutional expert, all the intended powers have not been devolved to the provinces under phase one of the decentralisation plan. The governor, therefore, found the Punjab Assembly’s bid to pass the bills an attempt to take all the powers at once, which contravened the phased devolution approach of the devolution implementation commission headed by Senator Raza Rabbani.
The governor also returned the local government amendment ordinance, which sought a six-month delay in local elections.
The governor argued that the previous amendment bill expired on October 27, leaving a vacuum between the period of October 27 and December 19 (when the amendment bill was passed) that needed to be addressed.
Law Minister Rana Sanaullah dismissed the governor’s objections and said the bills would be tabled again at the next session, expected in another two weeks. Under Article 105 (1) of the Constitution, the governor would then be bound to approve the bills in 10 days.
While it is true that the governor cannot overrule the legislature and executive, the returning of the bills was a polite reminder to the legal branch of the executive to pull up its socks. Without indulging in the debate of which powers have been devolved to the province and which haven’t, one can state that the law branch was slack in presenting the local government amendment bill late.
Also, in the continuous evolution in which our democratic institutions find themselves, political friction and differences on important legal matters are the norm. The governor had every right to return the bills if he found something repugnant to the law in there.
But can anyone imagine a PPP governor embarrassing a PPP government in such a manner? Had it been a PPP government, the governor and the chief minister’s secretariat would have dealt with the matter behind closed doors. The political brinkmanship in this case is evident, as the matter was taken up in the house by opposition MPAs.
The governor’s move has also rendered useless all the legislative work done by the house in the 26-day session that ended yesterday. The treasury will have to go through the grind of presenting and passing the bills all over again, a tremendous waste of time and taxpayers’ money. Is anyone listening?
Published in The Express Tribune, January 10th, 2012.
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