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Tuesday March 19, 2024

Punjab PA speaker allowed to issue production orders for arrested MPAs

By Tariq Butt
January 16, 2019

ISLAMABAD: The Punjab Assembly has unanimously dispensed with a serious lacuna in its rules that deprived incarcerated lawmakers of the facility of attending House proceedings for decades.

Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi has thus been empowered to issue production orders of arrested legislators. In a rare show of accord and consensus, the bitter political rivals – Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) – joined hands to undo the flaw. It was the ruling PTI that sponsored the amendment in the rules after reaching an understanding with the PML-N, which readily voted for it.

For the time being, the elimination of the shortcoming has benefited the PML-N because it’s member of the Punjab Assembly Khawaja Salman Rafique, like his brother Khawaja Saad Rafique, a senior party leader, is in the custody of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

The anti-corruption watchdog had arrested the Khawaja brothers on December 11 after the Lahore High Court had refused to extend their interim bails. Since then, Salman Rafique has not seen the light of the day while Saad Rafique has come out of the NAB cell more than once on the orders of National Assembly Speaker Asad Umar or to appear before the Supreme Court more than once.

After their detention, the PML-N moved the Punjab Speaker to issue Salman Rafique’s production order, but he refused to do that saying that he doesn’t have such powers as there is no provision in the assembly rules. After that, the PTI and PML-N decided to alter the rules so that the Speaker is given the power to order production of an arrested member. Pervaiz Elahi took no time to do so on the PML-N’s request after the amendment was approved by the assembly.

The rules governing the National Assembly and Senate accord powers to their speakers to issue production order of an apprehended MP. It is under this authority that Asad Qaisar has repeatedly ordered production of Leader of the Opposition Shahbaz Sharif in the National Assembly.

Prominent constitutional expert Wasim Sajjad says the speakers of all the other three provincial legislatures of Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan also do not have the powers to direct production of detained members.

The Punjab legislature has taken the lead in undoing the deficiency for the other provincial assemblies to follow suit. The National Assembly rules also empower the Speaker and chairmen of standing committees to summon their confined members to attend meetings of these bodies or the legislature. Rule 108 says the Speaker or Chairman of a committee may summon a member in custody on the charge of a non-bailable offence to attend a sitting or sittings of the assembly or meeting of a committee of which he is a member, if he considers his presence necessary.

On a production order, signed by the secretary or by any other officer authorised in this behalf, addressed to the provincial government where the member is held in custody, or to the authority concerned, the provincial government or such authority will cause the member in custody to be produced before the Sergeant-at-Arms, who shall, after the conclusion of the sitting or the meeting, deliver the member into the custody of the provincial government or other authority concerned.

Under the rules, Speaker Asad Qaisar has the discretionary power regarding issuance of production order of an arrested lawmaker. While refusing to seek the presence of Saad Rafique, he had used his discretion against the MP amid continued protest by the opposition. On requests of the opposition MPs, all the federal speakers had been readily issuing production orders of the arrested lawmakers as required under the rules.

In the nineties, the presence of the then detained Asif Ali Zardar was repeatedly ensured in the National Assembly when Gohar Ayub was the Speaker. At the time, the then President Ghulam Ishaq Khan was much annoyed over Zardari’s production.