Babar stresses following Chinese model for economic progress

ISLAMABAD: The PPPP Secretary General Farhatullah Babar Tuesday said hyper judicial activism and perceived bias of the NAB had gravely undermined the executive's capacity to take economic decisions and called for a legislation to regulate the exercise of suo motu powers. He said this while addressing the launch of a report "Economic agenda between Promises and Performance" by the Policy Research Institute for Market Economy (PRIME) here.

“Any power that is not regulated by a law or is exercised excessively is a negation of the rule of law and calls for a public debate to make an appropriate legislation,” he said.

He said a lot of good had also been done by it but excessive exercise of suo motu jurisdiction extinguished the right to appeal - a fundamental of the rule of law. He said in exercise of suo motu powers a citizen must feel that he is getting his right and not bounty from the court. “Suo motu must not degenerate into a hyper activity in response to media headlines and powers must be guided by law and not by populism,” he said. Babar said appearance of populism is tempting but it is dangerous if it were to also become the ground norm. “A public discussion on such issues is necessary amid talk of new doctrines and judicial martial laws that has spawned multiple fears, “he said.

He recalled that in September 2011 a delegation of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) visited Pakistan and recommended that rules be framed for criteria for the use of suo motu and allocation of cases to benches. “The Supreme Court then issued a long rejoinder saying people appreciated the suo motu cases. However, it did not say anything about the law and the rules governing the criteria and allocation of suo motu cases,” he said.

He called for following the China model saying the economy will be in a bind as long as regional trade was employed as a tool of security instead of promoting welfare through trade and people to people contacts.

Babar said as a result, trade with Afghanistan had come down from $3 billion to about $1.5 billion a year. “Today 80% of large containers enter Afghanistan via Chabahar, Iran bypassing Pakistan and Kabul has banned Pakistani trucks from entering Afghanistan. No wonder movements like the PTM are gaining traction with the people in tribal areas,” he said.

Similarly, he said trade with India had been predicated on resolution of political issues and called for heeding the Chinese advice and model for trade. “China's trade with India has multiplied over the years crossing over a 100 billion dollar despite serious political issues between them,” he said.

He said besides the businesses unable to compete in price or quality the mindset that feared the outbreak of peace in the region also opposed regional trade to perpetuate their predominance in the state.

Babar said parliament's recommendations to turn around PIA had been ignored on the ground that the national airline was a private entity and instead of restructuring, it was allowed to accumulate huge debt.

“Power generation has been stressed but no attention given to transmission and distribution of power as a result of which loadshedding has not ended,” he said.