ISLAMABAD - The National Assembly in Friday’s sitting witnessed heated arguments in favour and against the 26th constitutional amendment by the lawmakers of both treasury and opposition sides.
The house, with comparatively thin presence of lawmakers, conducted a debate on the constitutional package that has yet not been finalized to formally lay in the house for legislation. However, the draft has been approved by the special committee formed to discuss amendments in the draft.
A religio-political party (JUI-F), which is being valued to achieve the magic figure for the legislation strongly criticized the government for not taking proper measures to stop alleged kidnapping of their members. JUI-F MNA Ghafoor Haideri in a clear message conveyed that they would not vote in favour of the amendments in such a state of uncertainty even if their bodies torn into pieces. “How can kidnapping and dialogue can be possible in a same point of time,” he questioned.
PPP senior leader and former prime minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf argued that these amendments would go in the favour judicial reforms. “Impression of person specific amendment is wrong,” he commented.
MNAs Ali Muhammad and Amir Dogar, in their speeches, criticized the government for making an attempt to bulldoze the constitutional package. Dogar said that the constitutional amendment draft was not passed unanimously in the special parliamentary committee.
They alleged that kidnapping of their members is only to pressurize them to vote in favour of the constitutional package. The government allied parties termed the constitutional amendment is currently need of the hour.
Earlier, the house passed “The Deposit Protection Corporation (Amendment) Bill, 2024” and “The Establishment of Special Court (Overseas Pakistanis Property) Bill, 2024.”
Besides, three bills were introduced, which include “The National Commission on the Status of Women (Amendment) Bill, 2024”, The Pakistan Infrastructure Development and Assets Management Authority Bill, 2024” and “The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (Implementation) Bill, 2024.”