Disturbing trends in legislation - Newspaper - DAWN.

COM 9/28/20, 9(29 AM

Disturbing trends in legislation

Ahmed Bilal Mehboob

SEPT 16 was another sad day in parliament when legislators from the
treasury and the opposition almost came to blows while the opposition
openly expressed lack of trust in the speaker who normally enjoys, or
should enjoy, bipartisan respect despite his affiliation to the ruling
party. The opposition strongly rejected the result of the counting of
votes on controversial legislation which was passed by a thin majority
of 10 in the joint session of parliament and staged a walkout which
facilitated the passage of eight bills in quick succession, three of them
relating to the commitments made by the government to be taken off
the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list.

The need for effective legislation to counter money laundering and terror
financing had existed for a long time but it became urgent when the FATF
placed Pakistan on the enhanced monitoring list commonly known as the
grey list in June 2018. Pakistan consequently made a high-level political
commitment to the Asia Pacific Group on money laundering (APG) to
strengthen its anti-money laundering and countering terrorists financing
(AML/CFT) regime and to address its strategic deficiencies.

Why does parliament wait until the eleventh hour to pass legislation?

It was, however, only during the past six months or, to be specific, since
Babar Awan was re-inducted as the prime ministerʼs adviser on
parliamentary affairs in April that the relevant legislative business acquired a
higher level of urgency in view of the upcoming FATF review in October.
Pakistan had received a serious warning in February 2020 when the official
FATF announcement had noted that “All deadlines in the action plan had

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Disturbing trends in legislation - Newspaper - DAWN.COM 9/28/20, 9(29 AM

expired. While noting recent and notable improvements, the FATF again
expresses concerns given Pakistanʼs failure to complete its action plan”. It
went on to add that “The FATF strongly urges Pakistan to swiftly complete
its full action plan by June 2020. Otherwise, should significant and
sustainable progress especially in prosecuting and penalising [terrorist
financing] not be made by the next plenary, the FATF will take action, which
could include the FATF calling on its members and urging all jurisdictions to
advise their [financial institutions] to give special attention to business
relations and transactions with Pakistan.”

This was a serious warning but the government still took months before it
scrambled to take action and when finally it did, there was no time for
niceties to discuss the proposed legislation threadbare with the opposition in
and out of the standing committees and develop consensus. The continuing
legislative trend, therefore, seems to be to not act in time and wait until the
eleventh hour and then use ‘urgencyʼ to avoid serious debate in parliament
and its committees.

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This trend seems to be up for repeating in the case of IMF-related legislation

that the government has committed to in its agreements with the IMF. There
are specific laws relating to the State Bank of Pakistan, the National Electric
Power Regulatory Authority and the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority which
the government has undertaken to amend along with passing a new law
relating to state-owned enterprises). The government had also committed to
introducing the related legislation in parliament following specific deadlines.
All these deadlines have already expired partly because of the coronavirus
pandemic but the commitments may be revived anytime. One may see
legislation passed at breakneck speed in parliament once again.

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Disturbing trends in legislation - Newspaper - DAWN.COM 9/28/20, 9(29 AM

The trend which one can discern from the two examples is that a number of
legislative initiatives are prompted by international entities like APG/FATF and
IMF. It is not precisely known how many laws will eventually be required to be
passed by parliament to satisfy their requirements but so far at least 11
FATF-related laws have been passed by parliament. These laws may be
legitimately required for the good of the country but why should Pakistan
wait for a nudge from these international entities to spring into action, and
why canʼt the executive and legislature safeguard national self-respect to
initiate legislation on their own rather than use the name of these agencies
to steamroll legislation at the last minute?

Another example of the executive and legislature not being proactive in

legislation is the case of the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999, which
is in urgent need of amendment. The superior courts have repeatedly drawn
the attention of the government to amend certain aspects of the law such as
the unbridled powers of the NAB chairman, the extraordinary duration of
remand and lack of provision for bail for the accused. The courts had also
raised objections to the provisions of voluntary return and plea bargain and,
at one point, the NAB chairman was even restrained by the courts to
exercise the power to allow voluntary return.

The extreme resentment by civil servants and the business community to

the wide powers of NAB is another reason for amending the NAB law. The
government even promulgated an ordinance in January this year to address
these concerns but the ordinance lapsed because it could not be passed by
parliament.

Chances are that the government may eventually go into emergency mode
to hurriedly pass amendments to NAO, 1999, in a reactive legislation if and
when the superior courts take up the case once again.

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Disturbing trends in legislation - Newspaper - DAWN.COM 9/28/20, 9(29 AM

Lastly, but critically, the perception of coercion perpetrated on legislators in

passing certain laws is extremely dangerous. During the recent headcount
for passing a bill in the joint sitting of parliament on Sept 16, the opposition
lost by 10 votes despite the fact it had a numerical superiority of around the
same number. The parliamentariansʼ attendance that day indicates the
absence of around 40 members of the opposition during the critical vote
count. Many opposition members complained of receiving threatening
telephone calls to either vote for the legislation or abstain. This is not the
first time such complaints were aired. The making of such calls and the
compliance of some legislators with the directives constitute a disturbing
trend and should be curbed.

The writer is president of the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development

And Transparency.

president@pildat.org

Twitter: @ABMPildat

Published in Dawn, September 27th, 2020

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