Serious differences have emerged between the government and the Opposition over the proposed accountability law. Addressing a news conference, the Leader of the Opposition, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, took serious exception to what he called the bulldozing of the Public Office Holders (Accountability) Bill in the National Assembly Standing Committee on Law and Justice.
Although he said that the majority of the 58 amendments, proposed by his party, had been incorporated in the bill, including the one about bringing the Army and the judiciary within the ambit of the law, three important recommendations have been dropped. One pertains to the appointment of the National Accountability Commission Chairman, who the PML-N had wanted to be a judge of the Supreme Court.
The second one was about requesting foreign governments to freeze and forfeit assets relevant to any investigation in Pakistan which, Chaudhry Nisar pointed out, was part of the 1999 National Accountability Ordinance, and forms the basis for current attempts to reopen a money-laundering case against bureaucrats and political office holders.
The third issue the Opposition leader said would render the entire law meaningless, concerns an indemnity clause, which says, "no proceeding, under this act, shall lie against the holder of a public office for anything which has been done in good faith or in pursuance of or in exercise of powers vested in him, or believed to be vested in him, or intended to be done at the material time by virtue of that position." Considering the PPP leadership's experience of the late 1980s and the '90s, it is not difficult to see where these clauses come from.
Most of the cases were reopened after the apex court quashed the controversial NRO, pertaining to that period. It is also hardly a secret that the bureaucracy in that period was highly politicised, and it openly and actively participated in what the PPP views as a persecution campaign. The ruling party, apparently, now wants to ensure that it does not face a similar situation.
Admittedly, there can be no fool-proof guarantee against error of judgement in the exercise of power. But as the Opposition leader pointed out, the proposed text of the clause regarding indemnity is "vague" and "open-ended". It exonerates public leaders from legal proceedings for doing anything wrong in 'good faith,' not only in pursuance or exercise of clearly stated powers, but also in exercising powers that he/she 'believes' to have, and also for 'intending' to do the right thing. It goes without saying that laws are based on definable terms, not imprecise conditions like what someone might have 'believed' or 'intended' to do in good faith.
It is imperative, therefore, that the new law clearly defines what may not constitute as an error of judgement, for example, when there is a clear and gross violation of law, or where the beneficiaries of a bureaucrat/public office holder's erroneous actions/decisions happen to be his/her family members or cronies. In order to become law, the proposed bill requires only a simple majority, which the government may find easy to garner. But in its present form, all the three controversial clauses are sure to generate a lot of heat and dust, causing tumult in society. The government would be well-advised to try and achieve consensus on this bill like the one it attained for the passage of the 18th Constitutional Amendment.