Senior lawyer Hamid Khan has said that it has been established that the Army Act and Official Secrets Act never received signatures and, negligence or no negligence, they cannot be considered law.

Speaking to Asma Shirazi in Faisla Aap Ka on Tuesday, Hamid Khan said that Alvi’s tweet seemed ‘delayed’ to him. He added that Alvi should have outlined his objections and returned the bills alot sooner but he left it to his staff.

However, Hamid said it was clear that Alvi had not granted his assent to the bill as per the constitution. He said that even if there was negligence, whether by the president or his staff, it was established that there was no signature. He said that it was clear that the two bills had not become law and could not be implemented.

Hamid Khan added that even the attorney general had admitted that the bills had been returned unsigned.

Regarding whether the president had only two options and was bound to respond in 10 days, Hamid added that automatically becoming law after ten days only applied if the law was sent back to the joint session of the parliament. He added that the second stage had never been reached.

Hamid Khan also said that Secretary Waqar Ahmed’s letter carried very little weight compared to the president. He said that since the president occupied the highest office of the land, his statement could not be discarded right away.

He also added that if the attorney general had admitted that the bill had been returned without signature, the secretary’s version had proven to be false.

Hamid added that the matter would eventually wound up in the Supreme Court. He also added that even if the president did not give assent to the law, it would not become law automatically until the next parliament was sworn in as per the conccept of ‘pocket veto’.

He said that whatever had happened, the bottomline was that the bills had not become an act of parliament.

It was better if the president had not tweeted: Abbasi

Former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said that the president’s statement about not giving assent to the official secrets act was a serious matter and it would have been better if Alvi had not tweeted.

He added that the matter should have been raised in a legal way to avoid ambiguity. He added that perhaps Alvi had tried to gain political mileage.

Abbasi said that if Alvi had not given assent, he had not offered dissent. He said that he would not comment if the decision was based on malice, but it seemed Alvi had waited until the parliament’s tenure had ended to issue a statement.

When asked if President Alvi would continue till September 8, Abbasi added that he could go even beyond the date until a new president was elected. However, he added that the situation after Alvi’s statement was ‘unprecedented’.

Abbasi said that it was unfortunate that the two bills had been passed without proper debate. He added that what happened was not unique and had happened under every government.

He added that Nawaz Sharif will return before the elections. However, he stopped short of giving an actual date.

Abbasi said that while ‘vote ko izzat do’ was still intact as a narrative, it was undoubtable that the PMLN’s standing in the publich had changed after their recent sting in government especially due to inflation.