EDITORIAL: It is certain now that the opposition’s no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Imran Khan will be put to vote in the National Assembly. And if anybody wanted a ‘sea of people’ at the D-Chowk to refuse way to the Parliament House to any member he has been told by the court he should think again.
No such thing will happen; this assurance was given by the Attorney General for Pakistan as the apex court was hearing on Monday the Supreme Court Bar Association President Ahsan Bhoon’s constitutional petition seeking its intervention into that planned ‘sea of people’. AGP Khalid Jawed assured the court that “when the session is convened then there will be no mob to obstruct the MNAs from entering the parliament and cast their votes… .
There will be no physical or unlawful obstruction on the day of no-confidence vote as the people voting against the party directive/policy cannot be stopped”. He also disowned any move on the part of the government to advise the Speaker to delay or dislodge the opposition’s move against the prime minister. That done, the district administration is now busy putting in place suitable arrangements for the ‘power shows’ of government and opposition on the day before the National Assembly meets to take up the no-confidence motion.
Why is there such a U-turn on the part of the government? We don’t know except for the reports that AGP had met the prime minister a day before and apprised him of repercussions following the government’s dilly-dallying over the session of National Assembly. That done, the honourable Chief Justice, Umar Ata Bandial, stated the court’s position that it is not convinced on interfering in the National Assembly’s affairs, “it only wants that no one’s right to vote is suffered”. As for the delay in the voting on no-confidence motion, the CJP opined that “these are the internal matters of the assembly … better fight these battles inside the assembly”.
Voting down a sitting government by holding a vote on no-confidence motion against its prime minister is a sine qua non of a functional democracy. The opposition’s charge against Speaker of National Assembly Asad Qaiser that he had violated the constitution by delaying a requisitioned session under the pretext of OIC Foreign Ministers’ conference is however a matter of debate, given his mandate under Article 254 that concedes: ‘failure to comply with requirement as to time does not render an act invalid’. But the story of this move for no-confidence vote against Prime Minister Imran Khan does not end here.
In fact, it is the post-vote scenario that is now gripping the public mind. As some say that the defectors of the party sold their votes others justify their posture, saying they would exercise their right to vote according to the call of their conscience. The adult franchise which we have adopted is an “expression of our faith in the sanctity and freedom of the human individual”.
But it is matter of debate, indicated as it is by the observation made by Justice Muneeb Akhtar that as per Article 95(ii), which deals with the procedure to bring in a no-confidence motion against the prime minister, a member’s individual vote has no status. The issue is likely to get better understanding as a larger bench would hear the presidential reference, which seeks lifetime disqualification for party defectors.
President Arif Alvi has approached the apex court for an advisory on measures and steps to be “taken within the constitutional and legal framework to curb and eradicate the cancerous practice of defection, floor-crossing and vote buying”. But that is for the future, what is on hand now is the fate of Imran Khan as prime minister of Pakistan, although there aren’t clear answers to the question: will the prime minister survive the vote of no-confidence against him?
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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