A day of Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Justice Umar Ata Bandial weighed in on a parliament without Imran Khan’s PTI and called it ‘incomplete’, Senators were up in arms in the upper house on Friday.

Irfan Siddiqui from the PMN-N said that yesterday the chief justice made remarks that were not directly related to the parliament or the elections and he also remarked that the Parliament is incomplete.

Siddiqui said let us make it clear that we are going to respect the judiciary, but how could the CJP say that the parliament was controversial.

“This remark is an attack on the dignity of the parliament. The parliament is the representative of the people. The judiciary and the armed forces of Pakistan are not the representative of the people. Have we ever named a judge and said that only one judge is honest?”

Siddiqui also referred to the Supreme Court judgment against Nawaz Sharif in the Panama case and said that when the apex court sent a prime minister packing, the politicians accepted the verdict.

Yousaf Raza Gilani from the PPP said that the no-confidence motion against Imran Khan was not an unconstitutional act. What the former speaker and former deputy speaker did with regard to the no-trust motion was unconstitutional, he said.

It was also unconstitutional to act on the advice of the former prime minister, he added.

However, Senator Shibli Faraz from the PTI said that the PTI government was leading the country towards development, but then suddenly the government was overthrown because of someone’s opposition.

The solution to all problems is the immediate elections, he said.

Faraz said that the caretaker chief minister of Punjab is part of the change regime and that bureaucrats were being transferred and appointed against the election laws.

A man has been arrested near Imran Khan’s Zaman Park residence in Lahore with a gun, police said on Friday.

Police officials said they were sweeping Khan’s residence for security reasons when they frisked a man and a pistol was found on him.

The man, who was arrested immediately, said he was the district president of PTI in Mianwali and carried a licensed weapon.

Police officials said they were verifying the authenticity of the weapon license.

Dozens of PTI supporters have been camping outside Imran Khan’s residence for weeks amid fears that the government may arrest the PTI chairman in any of the cases lodged against him.

The Election Commission of Pakistan has rejected a request by the PTI to push by-elections on 33 National Assembly seats from March 16 to March 19.

Responding to PTI’s concerns about possible effect on voter turnout on march 16 because it is a weekday, the commission said that the day will be declared as a general holiday in the constituency so people can make it to the polling stations.

The ECP has announced by-elections on 64 of the seats where PTI members’ resignations were accepted. The first batch of 33 elections is scheduled for March 16 while 31 constituencies will go to the polls on March 19.

Ban on transfers and postings

The election commission has also put a ban on postings and transfers in the 33 constituencies of the National Assembly where by-elections are due to be held on March 16.

The commission has already also appointed returning officers and given them magisterial powers.

The ECP has also issued a code of conduct for the polls which includes instructions to candidates to sumbit transparent details about their election expenses and to cooperate with security personnel. parties have also been asked to ensure smooth polling process by appointed trained polling agents.

Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial, hearing PTI’s petition against NAB amendments, questioned if fighting legislation in court instead of parliament was weakening the legislature.

Hearing a petition filed by Imran Khan against amendments made to the NAB law, the chief justice said that the court will ask Imran why he chose not to fight the bill in parliament.

The chief justice said that the parliament represented the political will of the people, so was it really appropriate to boycott it. “An MNA is the representative of the people of a constituency and is responsible for protecting their trust in him,” the chief justice said.

The government’s lawyer Makhdoom Ali Khan said that Imran Khan’s PTI had enough strength in the parliament to defeat the bill in a joint sitting. The chief justice wondered if a person could approach the court after himself boycotting the legislation.

Justice Bandial said that though there was a precedent of boycotting parliaments throughout the world, it needed to be seen if it was appropriate. He also said that every leader uses the constitution to justify their political strategy.

The court also revisited the debate of how parliamentary amendments could be questioned in court on the basis of public interest.

Mahdoom Ali Khan argued that if the court chose to pass a judgement on the NAB law, every bill passed by the parliament would invite litigation.

While Maryam Nawaz is moving across the country to ‘reorganize’ the PML-N after being given a senior position in the party, her husband Captain (r) Safdar has said he does not see her becoming prime minister.

It was not the only surprising statement that he made. He also added that general elections in the country will not be held before 2025 and that the PML-N’s ‘vote ko izzat do’ slogan will not be of much help to the party any more.

He also added that the Pakistan was at risk of turning into Sri Lanka if PML-N had not taken over the government.

Answering a question about Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Safdar said that the senior politician does not need a position to serve the party. On Miftah, he said that the former finance minister was like his brother and made no further comment.

Safdar is head of the party’s youth wing but is not seen as a front line party leader. He has been seen accompanying Maryam during court hearings and political rallies.

Maryam was recently made chief organiser of the party and given wide ranging powers over the party’s organisation and activities.

https://www.aajenglish.tv/live/politics-feb-10-23

A local court in Islamabad exempted Imran Khan from appearing in person in a case related to illegal protests utside the Election Commission.

The exemption was granted after Imran’s lawyer Babar Awan said that the PTI chief has not been declared fit to travel and will need 20 to 25 days to heal enough to travel to court.

The court extended Imran Khan’s bail till February 27 and asked him to submit a written reply.

The case pertains to a protest by PTI outside the election commission that was staged in violation of section 144.

PML-N’s Mohsin Shahnawaz Ranjha said that Imran Khan was trying to avoid courts on technical basis by ‘using the longest-lasting plaster in history’. He added that Imran Khan was going about the rest of his political activities without any hindrance.

Babar Awan argued that if needed, Imran Khan’s statement could be recorded via videolink as stated by the Supreme court in prvious cases. However, the judge said that it had not been done before in a case of bail-before-arrest.

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar announced that new taxes Rs170 billion would have to be imposed to comply with IMF demands and a new finance bill will have to be passed to impose them.

Addressing a press conference in Islamabad on Friday morning after the departure of the International Monetary Fund’s team, he said that fixing things recommended by the IMF was ‘in Pakistan’s interest’.

Read more: No agreement, and long list of demands as IMF team leaves

While a staff-level agreement has not bee reached, Dar said that talks had ended on a ‘positive note’.

He also said that the requirement of raising petrol prices by Rs50 had been met. However, he also indicated that diesel prices could go up by Rs10 soon.

The finance minister said that the speculations about Rs 500-600 rupees in taxes being imposed is not correct. The correct amount of new taxes will be around Rs170 billion.

He specifically mentioned the energy sector as an area which needed reforms and said that targeted subsidies would have to be reviewed.

“We will try to ensure that we do not burden poor people,” Dar said.

Last week, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif called Pakistan’s economic situation “unimaginable.”

“Ideally, Pakistan should have reached a staff level agreement at the end of the IMF mission,” Khaqan Najeeb, a former finance ministry adviser, told Reuters.

“Delay is untenable.”

IMF measures

The so-called staff-level agreement, which then needs to be approved by the IMF’s head office in Washington, must be reached before the funds are disbursed.

In addition to the stalled tranche, another $1.4 billion remains of the $6.5 billion bailout programme, which is due to end in June.

Experts said Pakistan needs the payout as soon as possible.

“If this drags on for, say, longer than a month, things get more difficult as our forex reserves have reached a critical level,” former central bank Deputy Governor Murtaza Syed told Reuters.

The conditions set by the IMF include a return to a market-based exchange rate and higher fuel prices, measures that Pakistan recently implemented and that have already sent inflation to a record high - 27.5% year on year in January – and created shortages in some imported goods.

Dar said Pakistan had also agreed with the IMF to introduce fiscal measures, including new taxes.

Analysts fear more fiscal tightening could tip the economy further into crisis.

“The government has not only wasted over five months in realising the gravity of the situation, it is still sleepwalking the country into an economic abyss,” said Sakib Sherani, who served as the finance ministry’s principal economic adviser in 2009-10.

Pakistan’s bonds dive

Pakistan’s government bonds slumped on Friday after the country’s bailout talks with the IMF ended without an agreement. The country’s bond due for repayment the soonest, in April 2024, tumbled 4.6 cents on the dollar or roughly 9%.

Other bonds with longer repayment dates fell between 2 and 3 cents to leave them at less than half their face value.

An IMF staff mission visited Islamabad from January 31 until February 9 to discuss the ninth review of a $7 billion loan programme.

The Washington-based lender has asked for more time for negotiations with Pakistan over a deal that would unlock $1.1 billion in much-needed funds for the country, Secretary of Finance Hamed Sheikh said on Thursday.