ISLAMABAD:
A sub-committee of the Senate Functional Committee on Human Rights has prepared a draft bill proposing the establishment of an Inter-Service Intelligence Agency (ISIA) to be overseen by the country’s prime minister.
The agency will be responsible for arresting, detaining, interrogating and prosecuting suspects to deal effectively with the challenges of national security and matters related to it.
The proposed legislation is called Inter Service Intelligence Agency (Functions, Powers and Regulation) Act 2012. The draft bill — which is to be examined by the main Senate Functional Committee on Human Rights — will be shared with the Senate Committee on Defence and Interior Affairs before it is tabled in the house.
According to the draft bill, the prime minister will oversee the agency and ensure that it works efficiently and within the parameters of the law. He will also ensure no prejudicial actions are taken by the proposed agency for or against a political grouping.
The sub-committee
In a meeting held on June 27 this year, the Functional Committee of the Senate on Human Rights constituted a three member sub-committee to look into the issue of enforced disappearances and proposed the draft bill and public hearing on the issue be incorporated, among other recommendations. The committee comprises Senators Farhatullah Babar, Nasreen Jalil and Suriya Amiruddin.
The special sub-committee recommended enacting suitable legislation to provide specific powers of arrest and detention to the army and law enforcement agencies under special circumstances, in order to curb anti-state activities.
Intelligence and security committee
According to the draft bill, there shall be an intelligence and security committee of parliament to examine matters relating to expenditure, administration and policy of the agency. This committee will consist of nine members drawn from both houses of parliament. But not one of them can be a minister or a minister of state.
The members of the committee shall be appointed by the prime minister in consultation with the leader of the opposition in the respective house and one of those members shall be appointed by the head of the committee. This commission is to prepare an annual report on the performance of the agency.
The agency’s head
The director general of the proposed agency will be a serving or retired civil servant in BS-22 or of equivalent rank in the country’s armed forces to be appointed by the president on the recommendation of the prime minister on such terms and conditions as the president may determine.
The DG will hold office for four years, extendable for one year unless he resigns or is removed from office during his term on grounds of inefficiency, misconduct or physical or mental disability.
The draft dictates that the DG shall, as far as is reasonably practicable, take steps to ensure national security intelligence, intelligence collection methods, sources of intelligence and the identity of the members of the agency are protected from unauthorised disclosure.
Powers of the ISIA
According to the draft, the powers of the ISIA will include the ability to take people into custody against whom an order of detention has been issued by the DG in writing.
They would also collect evidence against persons acting or likely to act in any manner against the security, integrity or economic well-being of Pakistan or who may be involved in planning, aiding, abetting or executing serious or organised crimes or acts of terrorism. They are also expected to provide the evidence collected during any process of gathering intelligence to the relevant agency.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 1st, 2012.
COMMENTS (19)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
just wastage of development funds.ISI is doing good for Pakistan and establishment should take care of ISI instead creating new agency.
What a copy cat, couldn't they come up with a new name? It is like I use apple Iphone, but now PPP has an appleA iPhone for pakistani users, it is like i use a zong sim, that seldom works with uncle malik blocking it off, now it is going to be Zonga under PPP directives. So in future are we going to add another A to PPP, so it will be PPPA, or better PAPPA? Add two A's and it works better? Is that it, just change the name. I bet this is what we do with the GDP, or now GDPA growth figures, uncle hafeez shaikh says its 4%, while IMF-A says it is less than that. So now I understand, uncle shaikh is talking about GDPA, while IMF about GDP growth.
So the only growth in GDP figures this year was an additional A in its name?
did they ask ISI?
People's Party always try to develop something parallel to ISI, IB & MI. Dint the Rental PM know that IB is directly under himself? they are either working on the directive of their Western paymasters to create an intelligence agency which they could control through their stooges sitting in Islamabad, or they want an agency for their personal use for political use and political victimisation. Imagine a PPP PM having a complete Intelligence Agency to his disposal, what would he use it for? what treacherous tasks would he get carried through the Agency.
Lol, with the level of corruption prevalent in our bureaucratic system, its highly unlikely the intelligence unit would be used to safeguard the national/international interests.
@Naeem: Better a police state than an anarchy
Are we going towards being a police state?
I wanna join this , I wonder if they take people who have done graduation
This will politicise national security.
So the existing agencies not functioning well?
I think there already is an agency with that name! And it's DG (at least under law) reports directly to the PM!
What a waste of resources, Instead of improving IB, FIA, Special branch, CID ISI and MI performance by allocating them more resources, these guys wasting resources on a new agency Just EPIC. Shows how much they care about nation money!
@ Elhaan Khan & Mirza, What is so brilliant in it? Pakistan already has numerous Intelligence agenices e.g. ISI, IB, FIA, CIA and CID. what else a country requires to coup up with the security challenges??
What is required is to provide sophiosticaed paraphernalia to these agencies and to make their organizational functioning smooth and by introducing administrative reforms to re-shape the scope of these agencies.
We do not want billions of PKR speding only on these secuirty issues unnecessarily, Instead country wnats software houses, technology parks, reserach centres, Roads, communication system so on so forth. Otherwise, this nation will reduce itslef in producing "Faujis" and thats all.
@Mirza: Every agency except CIA.
Its a good move, It should be done years ago but the question is this are these parliamentarians and people from Senate are capable to deal or watch or monitor this with all fake degrees, uneducated, even unethical manners? Is there any competent member in the parliament? They are all crap thats what i know, and they only want to do this just for their own benefits..
Democracy at work! All such agencies and their funding should be under the control of elected PM and open and transparent like many democratic countries. People have a right to know how their funds are being spent. No wonder some quarters hate democracy!
Brilliant, just brilliant move!