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Thursday March 28, 2024

Opposition protests as governor stripped of authority to appoint ombudsman

By Our Correspondent
January 09, 2020

Amid joint walkout staged by all the opposition lawmakers in the house, the Sindh Assembly on Wednesday passed an amendment bill to strip the Sindh governor of his power to appoint the provincial ombudsman and vest the same authority in the chief minister as being the chief executive of the province.

The bill in question, ‘Establishment of the Office of the Ombudsman for the Province of Sindh (Amendment) Bill 2020’, was presented in the house by Sindh Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Mukesh Kumar Chawla.

The opposition legislators belonging to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA), Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) and Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) staged the joint walkout from the house over them not being allowed to speak in the house before the passage of the bill.

The opposition walkout on Wednesday was unique due to the fact that the TLP and MMA lawmakers also joined it, who usually remain in the legislature when the three coalition partners in the federal government, PTI, MQM-P and GDA, stage walkouts.

Speaking on the bill, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said the original law to establish the offices of the provincial ombudsman had been passed in 1990s originally empowering the governor to appoint the ombudsman.

He said in case the governor was originally empowered by the law to appoint the ombudsman, then such executive authority of appointment had to be exercised by the governor on the advice of the chief minister as per the constitution.

He added that Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) had already passed similar laws several years back to empower their chief ministers to appoint the ombudsman. He maintained that Sindh was following Punjab and KP in amending its law regarding to the appointment of the provincial ombudsman.

The CM said another reason to pass the new amendment bill was to introduce proper eligibility criteria for a person to be appointed as the provincial ombudsman.

The CM said the new law would define proper qualification criteria in case a retired civil servant or someone belonging to the judiciary or law profession had to be appointed as the provincial ombudsman.

He added that the earlier law gave no qualification criteria for the post as any person regardless of his or her qualification could be appointed as the ombudsman.

He was of the view that nobody should be concerned about the new law as it was basically meant to make the law governing the office of the provincial ombudsman in Sindh similar to those enacted in other provinces.

Later, Sindh Assembly Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani did not allow the opposition legislators to speak on the bill, prompting them to stage a walkout from the House. Parliamentary party leader of the PTI Haleem Adil Shaikh was the first one who stood up from his seat to speak on the bill but he and other opposition legislators were denied the opportunity to speak on the newly introduced law.