By IANS,
Islamabad : The Pakistani president’s powers are to be partially slashed by giving the prime minister the prerogative to appoint the three service chiefs, a media report Friday said.
Parliament’s constitutional reforms committee had agreed to transfer the authority of appointing the service chiefs from the head of state to the head of government by amending article 243 of the constitution, a private TV channel reported on Thursday.
Once that happens, the president will have to consult the prime minister before appointing the chiefs of the army, the navy and the air force.
The decision was taken unanimously by all the major political parties, including the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q).
The committee rejected two suggestions of the Jamaat-e-Islami, one of which was that the service chiefs should be appointed after parliamentary approval. It also suggested that the service chiefs should not be given extensions and should be retired as soon as they complete their term in office.
The committee, however, did not discuss the larger question of repealing the 17th amendment of the constitution under which then president Pervez Musharraf had transferred key executive powers from the prime minister’s office to the presidency.
Among these are the powers to appoint the Supreme Court chief justice and to dismiss the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, and the provincial assemblies.
The issue had soured relations between the PPP and the PML-N who had formed a coalition after their one-two finish in the February 2008 general elections that brought an elected government to power after nine years.
The PML-N had walked out of the coalition after President Asif Ali Zardari, who is also the PPP co-chair refused to budge on the issue.
Zardari has twice in the past promised the amendment would be repealed but has not set a deadline for this.