Religious groups opposed amending Articles 62, 63: Rabbani

Hopes next Parliament will be able to agree on needed changes.

Pakistan Peoples Party’s Senator Raza Rabbani said on Saturday that religious and right-wing parties, included in the committee reforming the 18th amendment, were strongly against changing Article 62 and 63 of the Constitution.

Speaking during BBC Urdu’s programme, Sairbeen, the senator said that the two articles came under discussion various times during meetings of the committee. However, representatives of religious parties were not in favour of changing them.

In the backdrop of the elections, Article 62 and 63 have become a hot topic of discussion. Parties belonging to the previous parliament have been criticised for failing to amend them.

Rabbani – considered one of the driving forces behind the 18th amendment – said that right-wing parties thought that the time was not appropriate for making any amendments to the two articles.

“They said that an unnecessary and on-going debate on corrupt politicians is underway these days, therefore it is not the right time to remove the articles referring to a ‘sadiq’ and ‘ameen’ leader.”

Rabbani said that the committee was also told that these two articles carried ambiguous meanings.

“The committee was told that neither the Constitution can define the two words, nor can the common man agree on a single definition.”

Article 62 deals with the qualification for the membership of Parliament, while Article 63 elaborates the conditions under which one can be disqualified.

Rabbani refused to disclose the names of parties that opposed any form of change to these two articles and said that since the proceedings of the committee were in-camera, he could not say anything more about this.

“It was the religious and right-wing parties that were not in favour of amending these articles,” the senator repeated.

However, he hoped that the next parliament would strike some form of agreement over the two articles.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 7^th, 2013.