Islamabad: The joint session of Parliament on Monday approved 8 bills including the National Accountability Bill 2023.
Law and Justice Minister Senator Azam Nazir Tarar presented the National Accountability (Amendment) Bill, 2023, which was sent back to Parliament for reconsideration by the President under Article 75 (2) of the Constitution.
The bill will now be presented to the President and if not signed by the President within 10 days, it will be deemed to be an Act of Parliament.
However, the joint session rejected three amendments moved by Jamaat-e-Islami Senator Mushtaq Ahmed to be included in the bill.
The Jamaat-e-Islami Member of Parliament, through an amendment, sought to delete the provision of the National Accountability Bill, 2023, which has been in force since the commencement of the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999.
The House also rejected an amendment, in which Senator Mushtaq suggested that no senior officer or deputy chairman could be appointed to act as NAB chairman in his absence.
The law minister said the bill was returned to Parliament on the basis that earlier amendments to the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999, were pending in the Supreme Court.
He said that the power and authority of the Parliament is absolute and no body can prevent it from enacting legislation. He said that the President was also a part of the Parliament, but he did not know that the power of the Parliament was absolute, and could not be curtailed by legislation on subordinate judicial matters.
He said that the new law guarantees fair trial as per the constitution and will check political engineering. He said that the dictator’s NAB law was used to target political victims and the courts have It was also declared a black law.
The bill seeks to remove the legal complications in transferring cases from the accountability court to the respective forums, which do not come under the jurisdiction of the NAB Ordinance. The joint session also passed seven other bills which were passed by the National Assembly and not passed by the Senate within 90 days.
Introduced by MQM legislator Kishore Zehra, the House passed the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues (Amendment) Bill, 2021. Day Care Centers Bill, 2019 and Maternity and Paternity Leave Bill, 2020, which were passed during the session.
The joint session passed the Criminal Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2022, which was introduced by PML-N legislator Kiso Mil Khyaldas. The purpose of this bill is to amend the Electronic Crimes Act 2016, Pakistan Penal Code 1860 and Law of Martyrdom Order 1984. Parliament also approved the amendments proposed by MNA Mehnaz Akbar Aziz in this legislative proposal. .
Syed Javed Hasnain of PMLN presented the Delimitation (Amendment) Bill 2022 which was passed by the meeting. It proposed to give the right of appeal to the person sentenced to death within 30 days.
The House passed the Specific Relief (Amendment) Bill, 2022, which aims to ensure the share of women and their legal heirs in inheritance. The bill was also presented by Syed Javed Hasnain. Another bill – Protection of Parents Bill, 2022 – was postponed on the request of the Minister of Law and Justice.
