By: Amir Wasim
ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Law and Justice approved on Wednesday the controversial National Accountability Commission bill with a few minor amendments through a majority vote ignoring opposition’s reservations.
Briefing reporters after the in-camera meeting of the committee, Law Minister Farooq Naek announced that the bill had been cleared by the committee and it would be introduced in the National Assembly next week.
On the other hand, PML-N leader Zahid Hamid told Dawn that the law minister had assured them that the bill would not be put to vote in the assembly till opposition members submitted their notes of dissent.
Mr Hamid said the ruling party had rejected almost all their proposals leaving no option for them but to oppose the bill when it would be presented in the National Assembly.
“We will stop the passage of the bill with full force,” he declared when asked about the party’s strategy. The PML-N leader said the government had made some minor changes in the bill on its own and not on the PML-N’s demand.
In reply to a question, Mr Hamid declared that the PML-N would also not support the government-proposed Fair Trial Bill in its present form. This bill will be taken up by the committee on Thursday.
In the proposed accountability law, he said, the government had reduced the maximum punishment of 14 years’ imprisonment to seven years and in case the culprit agreed to submit the plundered amount, the maximum punishment would only be of three years.
However, he said, the government had now agreed to convert the simple imprisonment to “rigorous imprisonment”. The PML-N, he said, wanted the retention of the maximum punishment of 14 years as given in the NAB law.
The proposed law, which will repeal the Musharraf-era National Accountability Ordinance of 1999, provides for the establishment of a three-member National Accountability Commission to be headed by a chairman who has been a judge of the Supreme Court or a federal government officer in basic pay scale (BPS) 22, a deputy chairman who has been a judge of a high court or a federal government officer in BPS-21 and a prosecutor general who is qualified to be appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court.
Mr Hamid, who was the law minister in the cabinet of previous military regime, claimed that the government had earlier agreed to remove the provision of the appointment of a retired federal government officer as the NAC chairman, but it again made it a part of the bill on Wednesday.
Moreover, he said, the proposed law would now be applicable from January 1, 2000, instead of as earlier suggested from Oct 1, 2002.
He said his party believed that there should be no such restrictions and a holder of a public office should be tried irrespective of when he had committed the crime.
The PML-N alleges that the government wants to bring a “toothless” accountability law only to protect looters and plunderers and that the opposition will never support establishment of such a “powerless” commission.
