Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf told the National Assembly on that he would write a letter to the Supreme Court expressing the sentiments of the parliamentarians towards the court decisions in the election delay case.
“The house is in a continuous state of anxiety,” Ashraf said, “speeches were made today regarding the judgements passed by the Supreme Court.” He added that he wanted to write a letter that would sum up the reservations expressed by members in the session.
“I want to ask the opinion of the house before writing the letter,” the speaker said, to which the members of present in the assembly responded by thumping their desks.
Speaking after the speaker’s declaration, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that a letter would not be enough since the latest judgements of the court amounted to ‘contempt of parliament’.
“The matter should be referred to the priviliges committee,” Bilawal said.
Earlier in the day, a news report by Geo TV had claimed that the government was considering that ‘three people’ to the priviliges committee for contempt of parliament.
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar told the National Assembly on Wednesday that issuing funds for elections in the country was a complex procedural matter and could not simply be done on the Supreme Court’s orders.
In a fiery speech that ranged from the state of the economy before the 2018 elections and how the Supreme Court’s decisions were cutting into parliament’s domain, Dar said the need of the time was to fix the economy and elections could wait.
“Nothing will happen if elections are delayed a few months and held at once in October,” Dar said.
’What we are doing is not unconstitutional, what we are being asked to do (by the court) is unconstitutional,“ he said, holding a copy of the constitution in his hand. He then asked the house to guide the cabinet and the prime minister on how to proceed.
The finance minister said that even though the State Bank had allocated the money, the actual power to disburse the money belonged to the finance division.
He also referred to the Supreme Court order that said that the parliament decision to block election funding must be ‘anomalous’ by saying that the parliament had the right to accept or reject any bill.
“The members of this house know what they are doing,” Dar said.
He then explained that funds could not simply be allocated based on court decisions and a proper procedure had to be followed. He added that no summary for the funding had been moved by the Election Commission of Pakistan and the cabinet and Economic Coordination Committee could not make any decision without it.
The Supreme Court had ordered that elections for the Punjab Assembly be held on May 14 and had also issued orders for security and funding to be provided. The court had ordered that the funds should be issued first and ex post facto approval should be taken from the parliament.
However, the cabinet had once again sent the matter of election funding to thte parliament where it had been unanimously rejected.
The court was told that the State Bank had allocated the funds for the elections, but the cabinet had sent the matter to the parliament where it had been rejected.
When the considering the matter of how this bill was rejected, the order said, “In terms of the system of parliamentary democracy envisaged by the Constitution the Government of the day must command the confidence of the majority of the National Assembly at all times.” The order also extended this to the fact that the PM must enjoy the confidence of the house.
It then extended the matter of holding that confidence to the passage of getting bills passed in the parliament.
“It follows from the foregoing (and this is an important constitutional convention) that the Government of the day must be able to secure the passage of all financial measures that it submits before the National Assembly.”
The order then said that the fact that the rejection of election funding could have ‘serious constitutional implications’, the main one being that PM Shehbaz Sharif had lost the confidence of the house.
If the confidence of the house in Shehbaz Sharif is intact, the order said, then the failure to get funding approved from parliament could be regarded as ‘anomalous’.
