PPP bill was destined to be rejected

ISLAMABAD: A redundant piece of legislation being pushed by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) for passage in the National Assembly met the fate – rejection - it was destined to see.

Much water has flowed down the bridge but the PPP, joined by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), did not realize and was keen to get its Panama Papers Inquiries Bill passed by the Lower House of Parliament. However, its motion to move the bill was defeated by a majority vote.

Leading developments have overtaken the enactment of this law, which was exclusively meant to target Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family and save others, owning offshore companies belonging to other political parties, having been named in the Panama papers or detected otherwise.

The day a five-member bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, opened hearing on a slew of petitions filed by the PTI and others against the premier agitating the Panama disclosures, formulation of any law to provide for investigation into this matter became superfluous because the matter landed in the hands of the highest judicial forum for adjudication.

For the Panama case proceedings, the Inquiry Commissions Act 1956 remained no more relevant as these pleas invoked article 184(3) of the Constitution. Resultantly, preparation and likely enactment of any such law became immaterial.

After protracted proceedings, the top court handed down a split verdict on April 20 with all the judges, however, unanimously calling for further inquest by a six-member Joint Investigation Team (JIT), which is currently engaged in this job.

At the height of the crisis over the Panama Papers disclosures, the PPP had drafted the present bill obviously for political point scoring to mount pressure on the prime minister. In a tit-for-tat, the government side had also come out with its own bill, prescribing universal inquiry against all those owning offshore companies with the start of investigations from Nawaz Sharif and his family.

To offset the impact of the passage of the PPP’s bill from the Senate dominated by it, the government had got its own draft approved by the National Assembly where it has majority. While the PPP sent its proposed legislation to the National Assembly for clearance, the government transmitted its bill to the Senate for the same purpose. Obviously, the official draft will be rejected any day by the Upper House of Parliament as the National Assembly has done with the PPP’s proposal.

Both sides did a lot of politics after the Panama Papers hit Pakistan with the names of some members of the prime minister’s family surfacing in them. They held countless rounds of talks to frame a consensus bill, but to no avail as they were out to take maximum political mileage instead of reaching a worthwhile conclusion. The PPP’s focus always remained on singling out the prime minister in this kind of accountability.

It was clear from day one that the two bills were unexpected to be passed by the parliament in their original shapes. It was widely believed that they will have to marry the two proposals to formulate a consensus one if at all they were willing to pass a bill replacing the inquiry commission act. But this stage disappeared after the apex court took up the petitions on the Panama Papers. The result is that the original act still remains the law of the land to govern any such forums to be formed in future.

The prolonged useless wrangling between the government and PPP amply demonstrated that they were unable to reach an agreement on this important matter and let the Supreme Court to decide the case in regard to the prime minister and his children.

Supporting the bill, PPP leader Navid Qamar said if a commission, like the proposed one, had been in place, the Supreme Court might have referred the investigation to it instead of sending it to a JIT. “Whether there is something in the Panama Papers pertaining to the prime minister or not, the government is scared of it. Why don’t you want investigation to take place? The government should consider the bill before rejecting it straightaway as it could be beneficial if cases similar to the Panama Papers pop up in the future.”

However, Law Minister Zahid Hamid said that this bill is discriminatory in nature and is designed against the prime minister. “The Supreme Court had already given its decision over the issue.”