‘Constitutional package’ aiming to fix CJP’s tenure at 3 years expected to be tabled in NA, Senate today

In what is an unusual development for a Sunday, both the National Assembly and Senate sessions will convene today one after the other, with the highly anticipated but closely guarded ‘constitutional package’ expected to be on the agenda.

It is unusual for parliament to convene on a weekend, as it usually only happens in budget sessions or sittings convened for a specific, time-sensitive issue.

The package aims to fix the tenure of the chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) at three years among other things.

Today’s NA session was initially slated for 11:30am but then changed to 4pm on a Special Parliamentary Committee’s request made to the NA speaker.

Similarly, the Senate session slated for 4pm was rescheduled to 7pm, according to a notification from the Senate secretariat.

Ahead of the twin sessions, PPP Secretary General Nayyer Bokhari issued a letter to all the members of his party in the Senate and National Assembly to ensure their presence during the sessions and “vote as per directions of the party leadership”.

The package was expected to be tabled in the Parliament on Saturday but was put on hold by the ruling coalition for ‘strategic reasons’ emanating from the hurdles in mustering up the two-thirds majority in both houses.

Though no explanation for the delay in the introduction of the set of constitutional amendments came from the government, an informed source in the ruling coalition told Dawn the delay had “something to do with the numbers game” in the Senate. He explained that the government was short of one me­mber in the Senate, where 64 votes were req­uired for the amendment.

The constitutional package has remained a guarded secret, without any official word on its contents, amid speculations that the government plans to give extension to the top judge.

As far as the NA is concerned where the coalition needs several lawmakers to meet the two-thirds thre­shold of 224, the source said everything was in order in the lower house, particularly aft­er the oath-taking of PPP’s Makhdoom Tahir Ras­hid from NA-171.

“Thi­ngs have been managed and the [constitutional] package will be passed by both houses on Sunday,” the source seemed assured.

Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar on Saturday sha­red parts of the package with the upper house, whi­ch included an amendm­ent to Article 63-A of the Constitution, dealing with disqualification of those who cross party line in voting for a constitutional ame­ndment.

He explained that under the amendment, the vote of the members against whom a disqualification reference was filed by their party lea­dership would be counted.

Under another amendment, the incumbent chief election commissioner will continue to hold office, till his successor comes in. Senator Dar also said constitutional courts would be established to adjudicate upon constitutional petitions.

Also on Saturday, opposition parties decided in a joint meeting of parliamentary parties to send only ‘selected’ members to the NA and Senate so that the government may not be able to pressurise them or “falsely” use their names in favour of the proposed legislation.

Confidence of the parties was boosted after a “clearance” came from the Supreme Court that all those who did not submit PTI tickets to contest the Feb 8 general elections but later announced to join the party, will be considered PTI members.

While talking to Dawn, former NS speaker and PTI leader Asad Qaiser said that a few leaders/legislators from different opposition parties held a meeting in parliament house to discuss the ongoing situation and decide about the future line of action.

Interestingly, JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman became the most sought-after leader as the government amid the challenge to muster the support of required number of lawmakers twice approached him.

Efforts to get his party’s backing began on Friday night when Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif visited him, followed by government representatives a day later.

Qaiser told Dawn he wanted to meet the Maulana, but government representatives reached there earlier.

As soon as government representatives left the residence of JUI-F chief, the PTI delegation managed to meet Maulana Fazl and other JUI-F leaders just before midnight.

PTI chairman Gohar Ali Khan later told reporters he was optimistic about the outcome of the meeting. He said that the PTI delegation briefed JUI-F leaders over the proposed amendments.