Under Article 63-A party head’s statement to take precedence over every order: Sherry

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Climate Change and Vice President PPP Parliamentarians Senator Sherry Rehman said on Monday it was hypocritical of the PTI to create an uproar over a decision that had benefited them a few months ago.

“There should be no confusion as 63-A says the parliamentary leader’s order is to apply for voting that is done to enforce our whip on the floor within own party. It is not to go against the party leader that appoints a parliamentary leader and can later remove or even disqualify,” she said while talking to the media outside the SC.

She said she had been a parliamentary leader herself and knew the proceedings quite well that it was the decision of the party leader to appoint a parliamentary leader. In case of any conflict, it was the written statement by a party head whose decision took precedence, as it was them that appointed a parliamentary leader.

She said prior decisions had been made keeping this in mind. “Why is the PTI forgetting that it was them that had gone to the Supreme Court with a presidential reference in May 2022 to seek the interpretation of Article 63-A, after which the SC decided that the votes of dissident members of parliament would not be counted,” she said.

She said not every decision could nor was supposed to work in Imran Khan’s favour and he continues to protest over anything that is a point of conflict, often it is senseless. “One letter is recognised and the other is not as there is a different standard for us and different for others,” she said.

The minister said a written statement by a political leader could not be contested. “These back-and-forth reinterpretation requests are threatening to turn our Constitution into a joke,” she said. She said Imran Khan needs to respect the country he so passionately claims to fight for.

The PPP vice president said the economic crisis would end when the political crisis ends, but the PTI is creating a political crisis.

She called out the PTI for being hypocritical for rejecting the rightful search for a full court and asked why the PTI was afraid of a full court. “We are only seeking a full bench of the Supreme Court to hear the merits of the case. Parliament’s rulings as per the Constitution cannot be interpreted two ways,” she added.

Senator Sherry said the PTI government had created crises for the country in four years as Imran Khan dragged the country into a near-default, our national debt stands at a whopping Rs50,000 billion, and had the audacity to blame the coalition government for it. “How can a government that has been in office for less than five months be capable of bringing the country to where it is right now,” she said.