Press Release
Peshawar, March 2, 2011: MNA Marvi Memon through her legal counsel Mr. Omer Farouk Adam filed a constitutional petition in the Peshawer High court today. SVP PML Intikhab Khan was a co- petitioner in the same.
The constitutional petition challenges Article 63 A (1)(b) of the 18th Amendment which defines disqualification of a parliamentarian when they: vote or abstain from voting in the House contrary to any direction issued by the Parliamentary Party on election of PM or CM, on a vote of confidence, on a Money bill or a Constitutional Bill.
The argument in the petition states that this Article of the 18th amendment in effect breaches the guaranteed fundamental rights, violates representative government and is in violation of Article 4, 14, 17, 19, 25, 55, 63(2), 66, 95, 127.
Ms Memon explained her motive for filing this petition in the following way: “Functional democracy is a dream we have yet to achieve in Pakistan. There is some legislation which takes us further from our dream and this Article is one such anti democracy law. As a first time parliamentarian who is eager to fix parliamentary democracy in Pakistan it is my duty not to be silent if my conscience is not satisfied. There were many issues with the 18th Amendment which I raised at the time on the floor of the house and its time to fix some of the critical ones now.”
Legal Counsel Mr Omer Farouk Adam stated at this occasion that there is a background behind the distortion of this Article through the various constitutional amendments in history. He said that the 14th Amendment in 1997 inserted Article 63A which accepted disqualification when there was violation of party constitution, code of conduct and declared policies. Through Article 62 A (2) it gave powers to the disciplinary committee of the party to decide the matter. This provision was deleted via LFO 2002 giving dictatorial powers to party head and also imposing unreasonable restrictions on a member’s freedom of speech. And the same was continued by the 18th Amendment.
Ms Memon stated that the LFO strengthened the anti floor crossing Article which was a good omen for Pakistan’s politics and this was positively maintained in the 18th Amendment. However, she regretted the deletion of Article 17 (4) of the LFO 2002 in the 18th Amendment and termed it anti democratic. Ms Memon stated that just like horse trading was unacceptable so was not holding intra party elections.
Mr. Omer Farouk Adam further stated that the 18th Amendment’s Article 63 A (1) b was counter productive for democratic legislation because it insisted on “any direction issued by the parliamentary party” versus the more democratic concept of party policy as determined by the entire party. He explained that the omission of a party disciplinary committee from the said Article was a further regression from earlier legislation on the same.
Mr. Omer Farouk Adam stated that this Article also violated the principle that a member had a right to complete his tenure in the Assembly unless it was lawfully terminated. He said that “any legislation which could be used as an instrument by a party head or political party to cut short a tenure of a member on pretext of violation of his direction would prima facie be regarded as a violation of fundamental rights.”
Ms Memon regretted that though the parliamentary committee for the 18th Constitutional Amendment had been entrusted with protecting fundamental human rights as defined in their criteria, this was not protected for which the constitutional committee members shared a large blame. They had infact misled the rest of parliament into signing off on certain anti-democratic Articles.
Ms Memon explained that the Article in question was serving more than its intended goal of floor crossing. She said that “It had crossed the limits by being used as a weapon to keep elected representatives of a political party hostage at the whims of the party head thereby robbing the MNA of their right to represent the electorate and to exercise their right of dissent or speech as a representative of their constituency.”
Ms Memon said that many times during the current parliamentary year she had felt her voice of conscience silenced when she could not take a stand against anti peoples Money Bill 2010 and constitutional amendments. She said she had objected to the introduction of this Article at the time of the 18th Amendment because she knew it would be used to encourage politicking versus truly serving as a voice of the people of Pakistan.
Ms Memon stated that: “To change the old politics into clean new politics the voice of conscience versus the voice of convenience is critical. There needs to be space for individuals to be able to take the right stands versus the politically expedient stands. There needs to be room for politics of morality versus politics of vested interest. And for that to happen the window of conscience which had historically been open needs to be re-opened and a regressive law needs to be struck down by the judiciary. I hope that where my institution has faltered the judiciary would rectify.”
No comments:
Post a Comment