Top office-holders appear before parliaments worldwide

LAHORE: Following Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi’s speech in parliament Wednesday, whereby he had asked the House to summon the NAB chairman to clear his position regarding his accusation that deposed Premier Nawaz Sharif had ‘laundered’ $4.9 billion to India, eminent PTI leader Asad Umar remarked that if institutions were probed, it would result in justice being murdered as powers should not be misused to manipulate truth and hence a parliamentary committee should not be formed to call for physical presence of anti-graft watchdog’s boss.

Well, it was the same Asad Umer, who—-on December 2, 2016— had vociferously proposed that the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Finance should call the regional head of NAB for briefing in an investigation into state-owned National Bank of Pakistan (NBP)’s Bangladesh scam.

Despite the fact that the NBP President had informed the parliamentary body that the bank had conducted its internal inquiry in which 62 officers were involved and an amount of Rs 35 million of the embezzled 185 million had been recovered, Asad Umar had asserted: “State institutions have been crippled. If there is a lacuna in law, it should be amended. And if employees are not working properly, they should be sent home. The committee should summon the regional head of the NAB for briefing in this case.”

Meanwhile, the NAB director, while briefing the committee, had said that his institution was also interrogating senior officials/directors of the bank.

(Reference: Numerous newspaper and television reports of the day)

Just to refresh Asad Umar’s memory by citing another case here, the-then Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and Director General of Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), Lt. General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, had appeared before a joint sitting of the Pakistan Peoples’ Party-led parliament on May 13, 2011 to deliver details about the US operation in which Osama Bin Laden was killed just 11 days prior to this session.

The two generals were called before the extraordinary 11-hour session to answer the failures of the military and the premier intelligence agency that had allegedly allowed a team of American commandos to enter and leave Pakistan in a stealth helicopter operation undetected.

The-then ISI boss, General Pasha, while briefing the joint parliament “in camera” session regarding the Abbottabad Operation, had asked the nation and lawmakers to forgive him and had stated on floor of the House that if the parliament ordered his resignation he would be willing to step down forthwith. The-then Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, heads of all three armed forces and DG, ISI had all attended this unprecedented meeting.

While Pasha did all the talking, General Kayani had silently attended the session, along with the heads of the Pakistan Air force and the Navy.

Pakistani newspaper “Dawn” had reported: “The Director General of Inter Services Intelligence Lt. General Ahmed Shuja Pasha while briefing the joint parliament “in camera” session regarding the Abbottabad Operation, said that the May 2 incident was his institution’s failure. During the joint sitting of parliament, Pakistan’s military and security officials delivered details about the US operation in which Osama Bin Laden was killed.”

The local media outlet had maintained: “The ISI head Shuja Pasha asked the nation and parliament to forgive him and stated that if the parliament ordered his resignation he would be willing to step down. Pasha said that Pakistan was facing several troubles and dis not have the latest technology. He said that ensuring the security of the country was the top-most priority of his institution.”

The “New York Times” had stated: “In an unusual and apparently heated, closed-door session of Parliament, Pakistan’s spy chief issued a rousing denunciation of the United States for its raid that killed Osama bin Laden and denied that Pakistan maintained any links with militant groups, according to lawmakers. Rather, the spy chief, Lt. General Pasha blamed an intelligence failure for the presence of Bin Laden in the city of Abbottabad, where a top military academy was located and where the leader of Al Qaeda was killed in an American raid on May 2. General Pasha said he had offered his resignation twice to the leader of the Army, General Kayani.” It is noteworthy that on December 15, 2008, a former Chief Justice of Pakistan, Sajjad Ali Shah, had viewed that the Parliament, being a supreme institution, had the power to summon the-then incumbent Chief Justice of Pakistan, the father of Farah Hameed Dogar, to answer queries about the extra marks awarded to his daughter in an exam.

In an exclusive chat with “The News International,” Justice (retd) Sajjad Ali Shah had said: “Parliament has given standing committees the authority to summon anybody. The National Assembly Standing Committee on Education could thus summon the top judge as the father of Farah Hameed Dogar. Under the Constitution, the legislature is more powerful than the Supreme Court. Parliament made laws and gave the Apex Court powers that it could wrest back.”

Few examples from around the world where high-profile people, including sitting Presidents and spy agency chiefs, had appeared before their respective national parliaments:

In United States, the practice of incumbent Presidents appearing before parliament is as old as 1789, when President George Washington was called to testify before the entire Senate on the subject of treaties signed by him.

In 1862, according to a US Senate Historical Office and Senate Library report on the subject, President Abraham Lincoln had voluntarily appeared before House Judiciary Committee and gave testimony in the matter of premature publication of his 1861 message to Congress in a newspaper called the “New York Herald.”

The House Judiciary Committee investigated the leak and called Herald correspondent Henry Wikoff to testify. Wikoff refused to divulge his source, citing “an obligation of strictest secrecy.” Given Wikoff’s close friendship with First Lady Mary Lincoln, many assumed that the correspondent was protecting the first lady.

The committee ordered the sergeant at arms to hold Wikoff. Then the President went to the Capitol for a private meeting with Judiciary Committee members, to assure them that no member of his family was involved. The next day the committee released the reporter.

Other important American government functionaries and heads of state who appeared before their country’s parliament include Vice President Schuyler Colfax (1873), President Woodrow Wilson (1919), President Theodore Roosevelt (1911), President William Howard Taft (1919), President Harry Truman (1955) and President Gerald Ford (1974) etc.

On December 19, 1998, President Bill Clinton was impeached by the US House of Representatives on grounds of perjury to a grand jury.

Clinton was subsequently acquitted of these charges by the US Senate on February 12, 1999.

An impeachment process against President Richard Nixon was formally initiated on February 6, 1974, when the United States House of Representatives had passed a resolution in Watergate scam.

Nixon had resigned from office on August 9, 1974. It is widely believed that had Nixon not resigned, his impeachment by the House and removal from office by a trial before the United States Senate would have occurred.

In June 2016, as German public international broadcaster Deutsche Welle or DW, had reported, the Parliamentary hearings for the investigative committee on American National Security Agency (NSA) activities in Germany had revealed that the key European nation might have been involved indirectly in helping US drone attacks.

The “Deutsche Welle “had maintained that the investigative parliamentary body, constituted by the German Bundestag, the lower house of the parliament, had heard testimony given by Heinz Fromm, who headed the country’s domestic intelligence agency called the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution from 2000 to 2012.

This German domestic spy agency, as research shows, has 3,500 employees and has an annual budget of 349 million Euros.

In his testimony, Heinz Fromm had detailed the extent to which German intelligence might have facilitated targeted drone killings in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The committee was originally convoked after a number of German nationals were killed in drone strikes in central Asia.

Fromm also stressed that the ongoing exchange of intelligence with friendly intelligence agencies abroad was “of utmost importance,” but added that his office might have made “errors” in the way it used to deal with the US intelligence agency NSA.

It is imperative to note that on October 5, 2017, the heads of Germany’s secret services – the foreign affairs body, the German Intelligence Agency, its domestic equivalent the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, and the Military Counterintelligence Service – were all convened for a public hearing before the German parliament’s oversight committee for the first time.

In India, as the “Times of India” had reported on June 7, 2011, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Director A.P. Singh had appeared before the Joint Parliamentary Committee looking into the multi-million dollar 2G Spectrum Scam to brief it on the allocation and pricing of telecom licences and spectrum during the period from 1998 to 2009.

The Central Bureau of Investigation is the premier investigating agency of India.

The Joint Parliamentary Committee had sought to know from the CBI Director details of the allocation and pricing of telecom licences during this period.

In an earlier meeting of Joint Parliamentary Committee, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, Vinod Rai, had also briefed the panel on the issue.

The Comptroller and Auditor General of India had then come in for some tough questioning on its presumptive loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore to the exchequer in 2G spectrum allocation with some members questioning its mandate of looking into a policy decision for arriving at the figure.

The Comptroller and Auditor General, in a report to Parliament in 2010, had pegged the presumptive loss to the exchequer on 2G spectrum allocation at Rs 1.76 lakh crore. The findings had triggered a political storm and subsequent events led to the resignation of the then Telecom Minister A. Raja.

In June 2017, according to the Deutsche Welle, an ex-FBI chief James Comey had testified before US Senate Intelligence Committee examining claims of coercion by President Trump and the Russian investigations.

James Comey was fired by President Trump in a move that shocked even Washington DC insiders.

Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he believed he was fired by President Trump over the growing Russia investigation and that other arguments by the White House were “lies, plain and simple.”

He began documenting his numerous, and often uncomfortable, conversations with Trump — in which the president asked for his “loyalty.”

In February 2018, the leaders of six top US intelligence agencies were called to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee for its annual “Worldwide Threats” hearing.

China and North Korea were big topics of discussion, but lawmakers and officials focused most on Russia’s election interference and ongoing influence operations.

The Senate Intelligence Committee had grilled a panel of top-ranking intelligence officials about a series of rising global and cyber threats the United States faced.

In addition to the cyber and nuclear threats posed by North Korea and China, officials also addressed recent controversies like reports that US intelligence officials had paid a shady Russian $100,000 in an effort to recover stolen cyber weapons etc.

The top six intelligence chiefs testified before the panel included Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, CIA director Mike Pompeo, FBI director Christopher Wray, Defense Intelligence Agency director Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley, National Security Agency director Adm. Mike Rogers, and National Geospatial Intelligence Agency director Robert Cardillo.

On October 13, 2017, Sir John Sawers, former Chief of MI6 (the foreign intelligence service of the government of the United Kingdom) had given evidence to a House of Lords Committee on sanctions policy in post-Brexit scenario.

The former head of MI6 had suggested Brexit might not happen as he warned leaving EU could reduce UK’s diplomatic firepower.

He also hinted that the decision to leave the EU could be overturned.

Research shows that countries like New Zealand, Australia, Norway and the United Kingdom all have statutory parliamentary intelligence and oversight committees.

New Zealand and Australia also have Inspectors-General of Intelligence and Security, while the United Kingdom has an Intelligence Services Commissioner and an Interception of Communications Commissioner, as well as an Investigatory Powers Tribunal.

In February 25, 2010, according to the “CNN,” Toyota Motors President had testified before the US Congress.

He had answered questions from members of the US House Oversight and Government Reform committee on the recall of 8 million vehicles worldwide.

Quite recently, on May 8, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa had appeared before the country’s National Assembly.

According to the South African Parliament website, the President was called for his second oral question and answer session since Parliament had elected him as South African head of state in February 2018.

South African media had reported the President’s Ramaphosa’s control had slipped once when he told his foes in parliament to “shut up” – not just once, but thrice.

He later withdrew his harsh statement, saying: “I should have said, ‘please keep quiet while I talk.”

The South African Constitution attaches no special privilege to any member of either the executive, the judiciary or the legislature. They are all subjected to it in equal measure.

Just a month ago, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had appeared in front of US Congress to be probed over the recent “Cambridge Analytica” data scandal. While the questions mostly pertained to the data harvesting itself and the subsequent aftermath, many were directed at Facebook’s monopolization and regulation.

Zuckerberg used cookie-cutter statements for many of the questions surrounding” Cambridge Analytica,” continuing to admit faults.

The US Congress had then viewed that Facebook didn’t notify the parliament of the illegitimate use of data, nor did the platform follow up on the claimed deletion of data.

Zuckerberg’s reasoned that it was “considered a closed case, but overall it seemed that he had acknowledged the issue was poorly handled.

On June 22, 2011, the Afghan parliament had voted to summon the country’s Attorney General, Mohammad Ishaq, over his involvement with a special election court.

Also summoned was former Chief Justice Abdul Salam Azeemi and two ex-Supreme Court judges (Mohammad Qasim and Zamin Ali Behsudi). The terms of all these arbiters had expired.