Senate Chairman Farooq H. Naek has said that PPP-led government never uses laws as tools to intimidate politicians and public like its predecessors. He was speaking at the inauguration session of the two-day Policy Dialogue Forum arranged here by the Office of Wafaqi Mohtasib in collaboration with United Nations Development Programme here on Tuesday.
He said the previous rulers used National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for their political objectives by introducing specific amendments to target great leaders Mohtarma Shaheed Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari. "But our government never misused such laws," he said emphatically and added that NAB could have better served if it was used for the real purpose of accountability.
Naek, while dilating upon the issue of administrative justice and public relief, said it was the Constitution of 1973, which envisaged a concept of justice, accountability and quick relief. "The concept of Federal and provincial Ombudsmen was first introduced by our great leader Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto with schedule 4 of the 1973 Constitution," he added.
Giving a detailed view of the main theme of the Forum "Ensuring good governance through strengthening of administrative justice and accountability," he said oversight and accountability bodies had a critical role in ensuring that service delivery agencies, both in the public and private sectors while functioning within the limits of law.
The Senate Chairman said it was unrealistic to think that legislatures should lay down policies and administrators must have the discretion except to apply and implement them. He said there was difference between general accountability and other specific forms of accountability relating to day to day excesses of power.
About administrative justice, he said, its primary purpose was to keep the powers of government within legal bounds and to protect the citizens against their abuse. "There has to be oversight to ensure that discretionary power does not degenerate into arbitrary power," he added. He said administrative law and justice were potent weapons for bringing about harmony between power and accountability.
These viable alternatives were all more important as the court system today was overburdened, besides considerable expense for the litigants, he added. Referring to National Judicial Policy, the Senate Chairman said under the guidance of Chief Justice of Pakistan the policy would yield positive results in the judicial system.
He said the concept of administrative justice must be understood to embrace issues relating to proper and efficient delivery of service standards. About utility of such mechanism, Naek said: "Unless a citizen himself has a voice in the general oversight process over the delivery of public services, the exercise of accountability is likely to remain weak and incomplete."
He stressed that regulatory bodies like Ombudsman offices, the Auditor General's office and the relevant standing committees in the Parliament should undertake the responsibility by laying down performance and service standards as well as codes of conduct and ensuring their enforcement.
He said the government, its agencies, and its public officials had the obligation to provide information about their decisions and actions to justify their objectives. He said freedom of information was not limited to freedom of media but it meant a free and easy access to information.
He also called upon the countrymen to desist from being lured by the pessimistic views of certain elements and appealed to them "Do not divide the people rather unite them, do not be vindictive rather be generous." Wafaqi Mohtasib Javed Sadiq Malik in his speech highlighted the programme "Strengthening public grievance redress mechanisms" started in collaboration with UNDP.
About Forum objectives, he said it was arranged to bring together a range of institutions acting together as pubic watchdog. He said all those institutions had a common objective in terms of their collective outputs and outcomes to promote public accountability and uphold rights of the citizens and thus improve governance.
He underlined the need to take all the stakeholders on board over the issues of transparency, accountability and administrative justice. UNDP Country Director and Bilal Haider of NPM also highlighted main objectives of the Forum. They said the office of the Wafaqi Mohtasib (Ombudsman) and UNDP were working together to strengthen public grievances through mechanisms under the Strengthening Public Grievance Redress Mechanisms (SPGRM) project. The 1.6 million dollars project will run from July 2008 to December 2010.
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