'Mysterious hands' interfering with drafting of new accountability law

[Naveed Yaseen]

Muhammad Ahmad Noorani
Several members of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Law and Justice, which is deliberating on the new accountability law in the country, have complained that mysterious hands are interfering with the decisions of the committee and changing the drafts, which are agreed to in the committee.

They said majority of the members were extremely irritated of the situation but added that they were unaware of the people or the hidden hand operating in this issue.

When the present PPP government decided to abolish the accountability infrastructure of the country in collaboration with PML-N the then federal law minister Farooq H Naek had prepared a draft for the new accountability set which was meant to abolish NAB but was generally termed as “a permanent NRO” as it was very soft on people who indulged in corrupt practices.

When this draft was submitted in National Assembly and subsequently was presented before the NA’s committee on law and justice, which in its 12 hectic meetings discussed this draft including all the controversial clauses that provide safe passages to corrupt people.

“However, whenever this draft with recommended changes comes to the committee it is in a different shape and form and the recommendations of the committee are not accommodated,” many committee members say.

One such draft, which was to be presented before the house was leaked to the media and was in complete contrast to what the majority of committee members had approved, a member said.

Surprisingly this final draft dubbed as ‘approved by committee’, a copy of which is available with The News, is identical to the initial draft prepared by the then federal law minister and was leaked to the media.

PPP’s Minister of State for Law and Justice, Muhammad Afzal Sindhu while talking to The News said that former law minister Farooq H Naek, now chairman Senate, had no influence whatsoever on the affairs of the ministry. “I don’t think there is any such thing. In fact I was unable to attend the last meeting of the committee,” the minister said.

Sindhu said he had been instructed by the prime minister that the new accountability bill should come to the house after complete consensus of all allied ruling parties and PML-N. “So, I have spoken to Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Asfandyar Wali and MQM people on the issue,” he said adding that he would be present in next meetings of the committee.

Chairperson of the committee Begum Nasim Akhtar Chaudhry was of the view that in fact the draft sent to house as ‘approved by the committee’ was approved in a meeting in which majority of the members were absent and so they did not know about its clauses. “But, it was approved in the committee,” she insisted.

On the other hand the other committee members are of the view that in the said meeting the draft of the new accountability law was not included in the agenda.

PPP MNA from Faisalabad and member of the committee Muhammad Ijaz Virk told The News that he had protested with the chairperson on the issue that if the Law Ministry people had to finalise the draft then there was no need of the parliamentarians to sit in these committee meetings and waste their time on deliberations on different aspects of the law.

Virk said the chairperson was also worried on the situation. He said whenever a draft came to committee with the impression of accommodation of suggested changes, it was different from what had unanimously been approved by the committee and bear very objectionable language.

PML-N’s Anusha Rehman said whenever the committee had unanimously approved something regarding this law the draft presented before the committee in next meeting might have been according to the recommendations.

“The committee gave recommendations on new points in some second meeting and when in some third meeting the draft came before committee the recommendations of the first meeting were completely changed on the issues which were never discussed in second meeting,” Anusha said.

She said one major problem of an easy influence on the draft-making of these hidden hands (she said she didn’t know about exact whereabouts of these hidden hands) was that a Law Ministry official use to take points and later on draft the bill. She said the committee members had no control on Law Ministry officials like in the present case “Mr. Hakim use to draft our approved proposals.”

She said the office of the standing committee on law and justice should have its own officer who should draft the bill strictly in accordance with committee members’ proposals and finally approved draft should be sent to the National Assembly instead of any intervention of the Law Ministry.

Despite this entire situation most of the members of the committee are confident that they will bulldoze any attempts to make the new law corruption-friendly and will present a good law before the house.

Major issues/controversial clauses before the committee include; the appointment of the chairman of new bureau after a public hearing of the parliamentary committee in accordance with CoD, removal of Naek-draft condition that no person could be tried after expiry of three years after leaving a public office, complete acquittal of a corrupt person if he choose to return all looted money under some plea bargain during any stage of the case or trial, direct access of investigation officers to bank accounts and banking documents and minimum punishment of seven years.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=202023