ISLAMABAD, August 19 2006: The government failed on Friday (Aug 18) to move a vaunted bill to amend two controversial Islamic Hudood laws as absence of most of its friends and foes left the National Assembly far short of quorum to do any business. The combined opposition’s absence was deliberate because one of its main components – the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) – was keen to block the bill it regards as un-Islamic and others went along for the sake of opposition’s unity for planned anti-government moves in the future, such as a no-confidence move to be brought against Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Aug 23.
But it was not immediately clear whether most members of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League and allied parties stayed away from the house because of any reservations against the bill or as a matter of routine apathy that has often left the present National Assembly quorum-less during nearly four years of its life. The Criminal Law (Amendment) (Protection of Women) Bill seeks amendments in the Pakistan Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure and other laws to protect women from the misuse of some provisions of the two 1979 ordinances about zina (rape and adultery) punishable with stoning to death and qazf (false imputation of zina).
Its introduction, for which President Pervez Musharraf had issued a directive to the ruling coalition three days ago, was the first item on the legislative agenda for the day. But the opposition pre-empted the move by pointing out the lack of quorum soon after the start of the question hour, forcing Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain to suspend the proceedings and finally adjourn the house until 5pm on Monday after a wait of 85 minutes failed to collect the required one-fourth, or 86 members, of the 342-seat house to complete the quorum.
The Speaker seemed to have smelled the opposition plans and liberally allowed opposition members to speak on points of order even before the question hour apparently to encourage them to stay in the house until the planned introduction of the bill by Law, Justice and Human Rights Minister Mohammad Wasi Zafar.
But opposition members, mainly of the MMA and the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP), slowly melted away before an MMA member from Karachi, Qari Gul Rehman, raised the question of quorum, which was found lacking on a count ordered by the chair as only about 40 members of the ruling coalition and only two of the opposition still preparing to leave were present in the house.
Not more than 20 opposition members were there at the start of the assembly proceedings and even their presence in the house at the time of the count would not have made the quorum. The MMA, grouping six Islamic parties, opposes any change in the four Hudood ordinances – including two prescribing the punishment of amputation of hands for theft and flogging for drinking – enforced in 1979 by then military ruler Gen Zia-ul-Haq.
Non-religious parties like the PPP and most rights groups in the country seek a total repeal of all the four ordinances and regard the government’s bill as insufficient to remedy what they call a wrong done by a military dictator in the name Islamisation of the society.
President Musharraf chaired a meeting with ruling coalition members of parliament, including Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and PML president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, on Tuesday when official sources said he directed the law ministry to present a redrafted bill containing amendments proposed by some coalition members. Rising on a point of order at the start of the day’s proceedings, MMA member Liaquat Baloch demanded that the Foreign Ministry clarify what he called contradictory statements about the reported plot to blow up airliners flying from Britain to the United States as well as the deployment of foreign peace-keeping troops in Lebanon under a UN Security Council resolution that ordered a ceasefire there after 34 days of war between Israel and the Hezbollah resistance movement.
Source: Dawn
Date:8/19/2006
