National Assembly session: New accountability bill invites opposition’s ire

Proposed law places a bar on reopening cases more than 10 years old.

ISLAMABAD: Years of delicate deliberations by the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs abruptly collapsed on Monday when the government tabled a new accountability bill which places a bar on reopening graft cases older than 10 years.

The National Accountability Commission Act, 2010, has been a bone of contention between the PPP and the PML-N since it was tabled in the house in April 2009, under the title ‘Holder of Public Office (Accountability) Act, 2009’. Its title was changed afterwards.

On Monday, when Law Minister Farooq H Naek stood up and said: “I beg to introduce a bill to repeal the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999, and enact a new accountability law,” he invited a wave of strong criticism from both sides of the aisle. While the opposition was understandably irked, lawmakers from the Awami National Party (ANP), which is an ally of the ruling party, also raised objections.

“The standing committee had passed the bill in April 2010,” said Zahid Hamid of the PML-N, demanding that the committee’s report be presented in the house along with the four dissenting notes which his party had submitted.

“The law minister should give us a reason for the withdrawal of the old bill in favour of the new one. Who is responsible for the colossal waste of time and money?” Hamid asked while taking a jab at PPP’s chief whip.

“The standing committee had failed to pass the bill in three years,” an unmoved Naek shot back.

He added that the new bill would replace the existing law put in place by former military ruler Pervez Musharraf and “bring an end to prosecution which members of the PPP, PML-N and others have suffered.”

Several ministers, including Khursheed Shah, Qamar Zaman Kaira and Naveed Qamar sided with the law minister, insisting the bill had not been passed.

Deputy Speaker Faisal Karim Kundi also chipped in: “Even my office has no information that the standing committee has passed the bill.”

However, ANP legislator Advocate Parvez Khan backed PML-N’s argument. “I challenge what Khursheed Shah has said. We (ANP) were taken into confidence, but we will never support this bill in the National Assembly,” he said.

Naek went on to quote rules of business, arguing: “I can withdraw a bill which  is not passed by the National Assembly at any stage.”

One of the opposition’s demands was to set up a new accountability commission to ensure a fair and just investigation/prosecution process.

According to the new bill, the chairman of the commission can either be a retired Supreme Court judge or someone who has served as a grade-22 federal government officer. In the previous bill, the opposition had insisted the chairman be a retired Supreme Court judge.

Another cause of disagreement between the two is Section 43 of the bill, which states that the “commission shall not investigate a complaint if the same is made after the expiry of a period of ten years from the date of the offence” mentioned in it.

Meanwhile, the house passed the Pakistan Academy of Letters Bill, 2012, after some last minute adjustments, but deferred the Intellectual Property Organization of Pakistan Bill, 2012 once again.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 9^th, 2012.