Alvi-Senate panel rejects parliamentary privileges’ codification

ISLAMABAD: The Senate Committee on Rules of Procedure Friday rejected a proposal for codification of parliamentary privileges, as this will limit the power of the Senate.

The committee met here at the Parliament House with Dr. Jehanzeb Jamaldeni in the chair.  The panel rejected a proposal for codification of parliamentary privileges and decided to keep them as they are.

It observed that codifying privileges will limit the power of the Upper House. The committee was given a detailed insight into the prospects of codifying privileges by the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, and international parliaments      practices on the same issue were also discussed.

It was observed that majority of world parliaments had declined the idea of codification of parliamentary privileges.  The committee meeting heard Captain (R) Liaquat Ali Malik, Superintendent of Police Security, Lahore, on the deferred matter of breach of privilege of chairman Senate of Pakistan during his visit to Lahore on November 22 last year.

The superintendent tendered an unconditional apology to the committee and submitted that he had not done any such act on purpose. The members of the committee asked for reiteration of the Order of Precedence of the State of Pakistan, which puts chairman Senate at the third position.

The committee accepted the apology but at the same time expresses disappointment over the attitude of the Punjab police. The matter of breach of privilege of the House due to failure of secretary Ministry of Railways while a calling attention notice was on the Orders of Day on December 29 last year was deferred because the secretary could not attend the meeting.

During the recently prorogued session, Minister for Railways Khawaja Saad Rafique had sent an application, expressing his inability to attend the sitting. However, no minister or senator from the treasury benches had any clue about this.

Hence, the notice had to be deferred and the chairman Senate Mian Raza Rabbani referred the matter to the committee for his failure to timely intimate the government about the minister’s engagements in Lahore.   

Under Rule no. 212-A of the amended Senate Rules of Business and Conduct in House, all agenda pending with the committee whose movers are no longer members of the Senate was lapsed. The committee will discuss the remaining pending agenda in the next meeting.