By IANS
Islamabad : Pakistan’s National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, “died an ironic natural death on Thursday, five years after it was born, as its last act was passing a resolution to suspend the constitution”, a media report Friday said.
The last resolution it passed during its final sitting on Nov 8 was to approve the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) and rubber stamp the proclamation of the emergency. The National Assembly had begun its life in a similar manner by validating the Legal Framework Order President Pervez Musharraf promulgated before the 2002 polls.
“There was a PCO when general election of October 2002 were held and there is a PCO now when general elections of 2008 are scheduled as Musharraf has already said the emergency would not be lifted before the polls,” The News said in a stingingly critical commentary.
Noting that the constitution was restored on Nov 15, 2002 when Musharraf took oath as president followed by a National Assembly session the same afternoon to validate the measure, the newspaper said: “The scriptwriter is likely to repeat the same play once again”.
Musharraf, who is also the country’s army chief, had overthrown then prime minister Nawaz Sharif in a bloodless coup in October 1999 and suspended the constitution. In 2002, he had first ordered a referendum to validate his presidency and then called general elections.
“During its years the National Assembly won the title of a permanent lame duck. The legislation it did was no match to the spate of presidential ordinances, the ratio being almost one act to two ordinances,” The News said.
The National Assembly passed only two bills in its first year, 17 in its second year, 18 in the third year, and five and eight bills respectively in the fourth and fifth years. This adds up to 50 bills in five years for an average of 10 bills per year.
Against this, 73 Presidential ordinances were issued during the five years.
Compared to this, the lower house of India’s parliament passed 216 bills in the same period while the government promulgated 28 ordinances, The News noted.
According to The News, the National Assembly might have been the third longest serving in Pakistan’s history. “It was also unique in the sense that it saw three prime ministers in a five-year term — all according to the wishes of its patron, the army chief.
“It was forced to vote for a new prime minister whenever (Musharraf) found the incumbent not behaving as he wanted. In the absence of seasoned politicians who were barred by the graduation clause and the leaders of mainstream political parties like Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto who were barred by Musharraf, the parliamentary parties could not command influence over their lawmakers, resultantly often turning the Assembly into a fish market,” the newspaper maintained.
Ministers would often “constitute a thin presence” in the house and missing treasury bench members “would repeatedly embarrass the leadership” and force the speaker to adjourn the house for lack of quorum, it added.
This apart, questions posed by MPs “had often to be deferred due to absence of relevant ministers”, The News said.
According to a report compiled by a rights body, only 21 percent of the questions asked were answered during the National Assembly’s five-year term. A total of 45,000 questions were asked of which only 9,600 were answered, the report said.
The National Assembly met for an average of a little over two hours per day during the last five years.
The National Assembly fulfilled its constitutional requirement of meeting for 130 days during each of its first four years. It, however, failed to fulfil the requirement in its fifth year, when it met for only 65 days.
Institutionally, the National Assembly lacked the tools and resources crucial to perform its role effectively.
“With 342 members of the National Assembly, the number of research staff available to serve these members stands at an abysmal six persons. This brings the ratio to one research staff for every 57 members,” The News noted.