Senate passed 18th Amendment Bill

The Senate on Thursday cleansed the Constitution of the dictatorial distortions by adopting the 18th Amendment with more than two-thirds majority and the epicentre of power would now be shifted from the Presidency to the Prime Minister’s House.
Though the 18th Amendment Bill got smooth sailing from the Senate, yet some opposition members showed a little resistance on two clauses relating to the renaming of the NWFP as “Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa’ and intra-party polls. But in the end, all their moves to block the bill came to naught.
“It is a victory of democracy today. Approval of this constitutional amendment is a landmark event in the constitutional history of Pakistan,” Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told the Senate just after the passage of the 18th Amendment.
The National Assembly last week approved the 102-clause bill, which reversed the moves by successive military rulers to weaken the 1973 Constitution. The bill, which also omitted the name of dictator General Ziaul Haq from the Constitution, ensured the provincial autonomy.
The bill would now be presented to President Asif Ali Zardari to be signed into a law. The amendments will effectively make the president a titular head of state, who can formally appoint heads of the armed forces, dissolve the National Assembly and appoint provincial governors on the advice of the prime minister.
It is likely that President Zardari may put his signatures on the bill today (Friday). The bill was adopted by the House unanimously, with 90 votes in favour and none was cast against it.
During the clause-by-clause voting of the 18th Amendment, a few members rose above the party line and supported some of the clauses, while a treasury member, Dr Safdar Abbassi, moved the amendment to Clause 6 relating to the political parties.
However, after the rejection of the amendment to Clause 6, Abbassi voted in support of the clause. While on the issue of ‘Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’, the PML-N was isolated, as only 12 votes were cast against it and 80 members voted in its favour. Even one of their members, Senator Gulshan Saeed, voted in favour of Khyber-Puktunkhwa.
About 64 members took part in the debate on the bill, which started on Tuesday and continued till Wednesday evening. They described it a landmark achievement in the history of the country.
The bill, passed by the Upper House, includes repealing of the 17th Amendment and the Legal Framework Order (LFO), included by dictator Pervez Musharraf during the previous regime. The Senate also passed a clause regarding the repealing of Article 58, which bars the president from dissolving the National Assembly on his own.
The Senate also passed an amendment to Article 153 of the Constitution, which provides reconstitution of Council of Common Interests (CCI), with the prime minister as its chairman. The House also introduced an amendment to the Constitution to change the procedure for the appointment of judges to the superior courts. Under this provision, the judges would now be nominated by a Judicial Commission, headed by the chief justice of Pakistan, while the final approval of the appointments would be given by a parliamentary committee, consisted of members of the National Assembly and the Senate.
The House also passed an amendment to Article 213 of the Constitution, which provides that the prime minister, in consultation with the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, would forward three names for the appointment of the chief election commissioner to a parliamentary committee for hearing and confirmation of one person from them.
Under Clause 90 of the amendment, the president will appoint the services chiefs on the advice of the prime minister, which was earlier the prerogative of the president. However, the president will remain the supreme commander of the armed forces.
Under Clause 71 of the amendment bill, establishment of the Islamabad High Court has been proposed besides setting up of benches of the Peshawar High Court in Mingora and the Balochistan High Court in Turbat.
The 18th Amendment has also provided more provincial autonomy through diverting resources to the provinces, allowing them to explore natural resources besides establishing power generation units and get royalty on the natural resources.
The bill also provides an increase in the powers of the Senate by various means. These include the increase of four seats in the House, to be reserved for minorities besides enhancing working days of the House from 90 to 110 in a parliamentary year.
The Senate will also have the power to prepare its suggestions on the federal budget in 15 days instead of seven. Moreover, the prime minister and the federal cabinet have been made answerable to the Senate.
Earlier, they were only answerable to the National Assembly. The members of the PML-Q presented four amendments in this regard. They suggested that the NWFP should be renamed as ‘Sarhad’ instead of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The House rejected all the proposed amendments with majority and passed the clause.
The chairman of the parliamentary committee, Mian Raza Rabbani, while responding to the amendments, said the coalition government in the the NWFP and the Centre would remove the apprehensions of the people of Hazara.
He said it was the policy of the government to promote reconciliation. Therefore, every effort would be made to resolve issues in the province, he said. Senator Jamal Leghari of the PML-Q proposed the establishment of a new province, consisting of areas of south Punjab and Sindh. The House rejected it with majority.
Muhammad Ali Durrani in his amendment proposed the revival of Bahawalpur as province. Later on, he walked out of the House in protest. Salim Saifullah Khan, Semeen Siddiqui, Wasim Sajjad, along with 12 other senators, moved amendments regarding the renaming of the NWFP.
Those who moved the amendments included Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Begum Fauzia Fakharuz Zaman, Nilofar Bakhtiar, Naeem Hussain Chatha, Gulshan Saeed, Haroon Akhtar Khan and others.
Raza Rabbani, while responding to the amendments, said these proposals came under discussion during the proceedings of the committee, but these were rejected by the majority, keeping in view the political situation in the country.
Earlier, senators from the PML-N and the PML-Q walked out of the House after ANP Senator Haji Adeel’s outburst against Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. However, they returned to the House after Adeel apologised for his remarks. PML-Q Senator Jameel Leghari also tabled an amendment to separate southern Punjab province, which was turned down by the House.

(The News: 16 April 2010)