Tazeen Akhtar
Finally the first move has been observed from the President house towards the validity of what the President tweeted on 19 Aug about two state security related bills,Official Secrets Amendment Bill 2023 & Pakistan Army Amendment Bill 2023. The President has removed his secretary Waqar Ahmad. The new secretary Humaira Ahmad has assumed the responsibilities.The President is confident and looks determined to stay in the Presidency if not manhandled to leave. Further he has found support from his party PTI. To the astonishment of many , even a senior parliamentarian of PPP has also termed him right.
The main lawyer of Imran Khan, Senator Babar Awan and other leaders have urged Chief Justice of Pakistan to take notice of what he said the constitutional crisis indicating that the two bills have no legal constitutional base to be implemented. On other side many experts have already opined that the bills are acts now even if the President has not signed, returned and even if the Parliament is incomplete and even if it can not be convened jointly to give approval again and send the bills again to the President.
Farhatullah Babar, former Senator of PPP and stance supporter of human rights and democracy tweeted , ” OMG, in less than 100 words tweet @ArifAlvi did what no one could do in last decade. atomic bomb exploded, Besides immediate annihilation of many it’s lethal radiations will continue to kill & maim in years ahead. No matter what happens now Alvi earns deep respect of many.
Senator of PPP, Raza Rabbani torn apart the Army Act Bill in the Senate and opposed it strongly. He blasted in the house on bulldozing the legislation by the government.
But theĀ Military Secretary is still there in the Presidency and the Question is also still unanswered that ” They did not return the bills or they forged the signatures of the President”?
Another Question on the President still has not been cleared from the President side. If the President returned the bills, it should have been with written note and not on verbal basis only. Here the President loses weight and that is why he is under pressure for his conduct and criticized for pushing the country into another turmoil whom Farhatullah Babar terms as Atomic Blast. The President can do this with the State whose constitutional head and supreme commander of armed forces he is.
At the same time, former government and the establishment are also supposed to clear the situation and confusion on why they passed dozens of bills in the last days of the National Assembly and why they dissolved the NA before the tenure 14 Aug 2023. What was the reason? This was all in connivance only for the elections to be delayed to undefined time? Regarding above mentioned two bills, they were meant to fix Imran Khan and stalwarts only? Can they prepare and pass person specific laws?
Now the ball is in the court of the establishment to clear its position. For that , the best forum is SCP where the Justices are already overburdened with constitutional matters and where most of the cases have not been decided according to the spirit of the constitution including the elections in 60 days of the dissolution of the assembly.
The nation is expecting rather fearing another long hearings at SCP and long discussions on tv channels without any solid conclusion. In the meanwhile , the caretakers have nothing to do because everything is being done from somewhere else.
PRESIDENT PLAYING ON STATE SECURITY RELATED BILLS TO BECOME A MARTYR BY THE MILITARY -TAZEEN AKHTAR