Bill exempting Musharraf from doffing uniform soon

11 Sep, 2004

The government is most likely to table a bill in the National Assembly soon, immunising the President Musharraf from doffing his uniform by December.
A sources privy to the ruling coalition parliamentary party meeting on Friday told Business Recorder that three constitutional experts, namely Advisor to PM, Sharifuddin Pirzada, Federal Minister for Law and Justice, Wasi Zafar and Dr Sher Afgan, Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, were working on the draft of the bill.
The matter was thoroughly discussed during the meeting at the Parliament House.
The source added that the meeting decided to strongly defend the President's stand on the uniform issue, in and outside the Parliament.
The government decided to allow the opposition to speak on the matter during the Monday sitting of the Lower House of the Parliament.
The source, in reply to a question, said that the government did not require a two-third majority to get the bill through, since, it will be an amendment, primarily aimed at envisaging that the President could hold two offices simultaneously.
The government, he pointed out, would be able to get the bill through the Parliament with simple majority.
The Constitution, after the 17th Amendment was incorporated in it says in its Artilce-63 (1) (d) that, 'he holds an office of profit in the service of Pakistan other than an office declared by law not to disqualify its holder'.

Read Comments