ISLAMABAD: A legislative body of the Upper House of parliament on Wednesday proposed amendments in the Law & Justice Commission as well as decided to review National Accountability Bureau (NAB) performance to make it result-oriented.
“Currently, the chief justice of Pakistan was head of the Law & Justice Commission and judges of high courts and others were members of the commission. As the judges were already overloaded and they were doing a lot of work, therefore, there was an urgent need to review the composition of the commission,” Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) Senator Javed Abbasi said who is the chairman of the Senate Standing Commission on Law & Justice.
The committee chairman was of the opinion that there was an urgent need to work over the Law & Justice Commission continuously and also compared its composition with other countries.
He said as the judges were very busy, other stakeholders from bar associations may be inducted in the composition of Law & Justice Commission. Further, he said that the commission was overburdened as it has to see many laws, which was hampering its performance. A sub-committee would be formulated to make it a more independent institution and determine its composition as well as mandate, he added.
The committee chairman further said that there was a need to review the NAB law, its performance and check whether it was fulfilling its other responsibilities rather than pin pointing people. In this regard, he said the committee would ask NAB chairman to give a detailed presentation over the objectives and performance of the department.
PMLN Senator Javed Abbasi also proposed a legislation for providing simple mechanism, in order to address the miseries and difficulties of common citizens in obtaining succession certificates and other related matters, which might include declaring the family tree prepared by the National Database & Regulation Authority (NADRA) as succession certificate and objections, if any can be filed in the court of law subsequently.
Committee members expressed serious concerns over the absence of the law minister as well as the secretary from the meeting. They said that the government was talking about austerity measures and respect for parliament, but despite spending huge amount on these meetings, the minister as well as the secretary of Law Ministry could not bother to attend the meeting.
Committee members said that getting succession certificate was very complicated and tricky as well as a waste a lot of time and resources. There was dire need to simplify the mechanism for getting the certificate to give relief to the common citizen.
Javed Abbasi said that if a person died, his/her successors could not access the deceased’s bank accounts nor his properties. For this purpose, first they have to hire a lawyer, then go to court and receive notices. However, they face problems when some family member is outside the country. The process was not only time consuming but also very expensive, Abbasi said, adding that they wanted to amend the law and can take help from NADRA family tree to get the succession certificate.
The committee had directed the Law & Justice Ministry to study current practices in other countries especially Muslim countries models and come up with a draft. However, Law & Justice Ministry Senior Legislature Adviser Malik Hakam Khan informed that the draft was in process and not yet finalised, but would be presented before the next meeting.
The committee expressed annoyance over non-compliance of its recommendations and directed to present the draft by November 2, 2018 before the next meeting to be held on November 5. There were six bills on the agenda, but due to the absence of the minister and the secretary from the meeting, the agenda was deferred.
Though, Prime Minister Imran Khan earlier claimed that the parliament would be given importance but in reality, neither its ministers and even secretaries couldn’t attend the committee meeting. Is this new Pakistan? Abbasi questioned.
Published in Daily Times, October 25th 2018.
