FROM A RINGSIDE SEAT

The sad news of the bomb blast in Raja Bazaar, Rawalpindi, echoed in the Monday's Senate proceedings. According to reports the suicide blast had led six lives (some say 10) and injured 26 people.
Saadia Abbasi mentioned the sad happening and it moved the acting Chairman Jan Jamali to issue a condemnation and grief for innocent students of the Army Medical College who were killed while travelling in the bus. The news also cast a shadow on the proceedings of the House. No one - not even the PML-Q members- spoke in favour of President Pervez Muharraf.
The Information Minister Nisar Memon, was the only exception. He came in the afternoon and defended the Government Ordinances on Pemra, Press and Publication Ordinance as well as the slight to senior and well respected journalist Ziauddin. However, that is a different story.
Even the privilege motion piloted by leader of the Opposition Raza Rabbani and seconded by Professor Khurshid Ahmad on the failure of the caretaker government in not letting the Senate complete its mandated 90 session days and also violating the Constitution received acceptance by the Acting Chairman who accepted the motion and sent it to the appropriate Standing Committee.
While speaking on these motions, a number of members including Raza Rabbani, Professor Khurshid Ahmad, Raza Khan Raza, Professor Ibrahim, and Saadia Abbasi covered a lot of ground and question the propriety of an individual, not withstanding his high station to amend the Constitution. The argument was whether the present law makers should countenance a personality trait to condition the basic law of the land to personal whims.
They also questioned the imposition of emergency as well promulgation of a Provisional Constitution Order (PCO), just when the apex judiciary was on the verge of deciding the issue of eligibility of a Chief of Army Staff to contest the office of the President. It was clear that the Constitution does not approve such deviations.
Raza Rabbani was also vehement that the next government to be formed after the election of February 18, would not validate what he termed present 'unlawful and ultra view acts'.
But he received a riposte from Law Minister Syed Afzaal Haidar, 75, who appeared to be well grounded in the facts of constitutional history. At first, the Minister referred to the unkindly jibe he had received from the Opposition Leader who at one time during the proceeding had commented that the Law Minister knew little about House procedure.
In speaking about the vires of emergency and the Provisional Constitutional Order Raza Rabbani read from the PCO and tore one-by-one the argument the COAS had written in the PCO Order. 'The Chief of the Army Staff has a limited role under the Constitution as prescribed in Article 245 and the Army Act. 'Neither the Constitution nor the Army Act empowers the COAS to issue the Proclamation of Emergency as issued by General Musharraf in his capacity as COAS.
As for sending a requisition for convening the Senate he said he did indeed send one, but was told by Senator Zafar that no Senator should attend the Senate or meetings of the Sanding Committee while the Emergency lasts.
Quoting Ghalib Hafiz and other Urdu poets the caretaker Law Minister said to Raza Rabbani, 'saap nikal giya ablaker iota kar (the serpent had made his escape now all that you could do is to club the trails he had left behind) Afzaal Haidar, former President of Punjab Bar Council, had also seen a bit of history.
He, therefore, went into the history of political parties who in the past had accepted the Governor General's action of dismissing the Constitution Assembly in 1954. Who was with Moulvi Tamizuddin when he filed his write petition? He quoted from the late Justice Munir Ahmad who was reported to have said that when Moulvi Sahib (Tamizuddin) came up to the court he did not find a single lawyer to appear on his behalf.
The Law Minister repeated that all previous Parliaments had validated past actions of the former Martial Law Administrators. The 17th Constitutional Amendment 2002 also endorsed the Legal Framework Order of President Musharraf.
If Opposition Members of Senate were provoked by the Provisional Constitutional Order issued on November 3, what had held them back from sending a requisition to convene the House?
The Minister pointed out that the National Assembly had also endorsed the PCO as well as the Emergency in its meeting of 6th November. When this scribe asked views about the privilege motions of Leader of the Opposition as well as Professor Khurshid Ahmad, from Senator S M Zafar, answered 'bukhar charh raha hai chharhne do, uttar jaye ga'.
In this conversation, Senator Zafar seemed more concerned with reducing the development budget, which as he put it, the country was in need of at this stage. We may mention that the Senator was one of the persons who had advised President Musharraf to seek election from the next Assembly, and not to contest from the present one, although in his opinion the law was on the side of the President.
Here it may pertinent to quote a passage from Maulvi Tamizuddin's book The Testament of Time: "As deputy President of the Constituent Assembly Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan had regular discussions with Quaid-i-Azam on the work, before the Assembly, of which the most important, of course, was the framing of a Constitution. One of the earliest issues discussed and agreed upon was the immediate need for holding sessions of the Assembly at Dacca, at least once a year.
"It began as such but soon degenerated into a mere formality. Thus a politically wise counsel was converted into an administrative formality without substance."
In addition, reports were also presented on the work done of the Standing Committee on Science and Technology as well as a Private Member's Bill to establish the Pakistan Institute for Parliament Services, probably drafted by Senator Anwar Bhinder.
The journalists protest walkout against Pemra, Press and Publications Ordinance as well as implementation of the 7th Wage Board brought two ministers Dr Amjad and G A Khan to the Press Lobby. They knew Ziauddin personally, and said perhaps President Musharraf had been misquoted because as they knew him (the President) he did not possess this kind of stiff hauteur.
The two ministers promised to convey the sentiments of journalists to the concerned quarters as well as the Information Minister. Be that as it may, the Information Minister when he came to the Senate had spoiled this earlier conviviality of the two ministers.