'Enforced disappearances', detentions for 180 days: Govt accused of trying to inject legal propriety

ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Thursday revealed that the PTI government was trying to legalise "enforced disappearances" and detentions of Pakistani citizens for 180 days through a bill "which was more horrific than what India is doing in occupied Jammu and Kashmir".

"We questioned and opposed the 'economic terrorism' bill, in which it was being proposed to authorize the enforced disappearance, picking up and detaining a Pakistani citizen for 90 days and again keep him or her for 90 more days without giving him the right to appear in any court. Believe in me, this bill was more horrific than what India is doing today in the occupied Kashmir," Abbasi said in a joint news conference with other opposition leaders, including PPP's Senator Sherry Rehman.

"In the committee, which was working on it and to decide, who to be picked up - one at the federal level and another at the provincial level, the government had included representatives of the secret agencies," he said, adding that the bill was withdrawn on the opposition's objection.

Abbasi said the government approached the opposition on Monday last week that the government wanted to pass four bills of which three were related to the compliance of Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the last one was related to the NAB.

He said that the opposition members who were in talks with the government in the parliamentary committee on legislative business questioned the government representatives to explain as where FATF had called for such a legislation.

He said: "The government side, then stated that it was not the FATF requirement and the particular section was included by mistake," he maintained, adding that the opposition also asked to know about the origin from where the bill was sent to the committee, but the government failed to respond".

He said that the two FATF-related bills were passed within 20 to 25 minutes.

On the NAB, he added that a draft bill was shared with the committee, and again the opposition questioned that "the draft is all about to give an 'NRO' to your own people who are facing or will be facing the NAB".

He also claimed that the government had proposed a lifetime extension to the chairman NAB.

"Again they [the government side] withdrew the first draft and shared a second one from which the portion related to the extension was omitted, but a section was proposed, which was even in contradiction of the Qanoon-e-Shahadat," he further maintained.

He said the section stated that if a person failed to object on any clause or page of a NAB reference within 14 days, it would automatically be admitted and presented as proof in the court of law.

After the objection raised by the opposition, he added that a decision was made that an informal committee of the two sides would be constituted, which would study the bill clause by clause.

Prior to the discussions on the draft, Abbasi said he himself told the government side that "the opposition does not need any amendment in the NAB laws, if they think the current laws should continue then will not propose any amendment, but the government side stated that it wants to change the laws as the country and the current NAB laws cannot go side by side".

He said that PPP's Farooq H Naek had only shared notes with the government side, and it was also conveyed to the government side that those were not the final amendments from the opposition side.

However, he added that the government side turned to the committee, the other day, and stated that the amendments were not acceptable to the prime minister.

Abbasi further stated that the opposition had also made it clear to the government side that there was no linkage between the proposed FATF-related legislation and the proposed amendments in the NAB laws.

"All these discussions held at the conference hall of the NA speaker's residence were informal that should not be brought in public. Unfortunately, the ministers and the advisers who were part of the informal committee first made these discussions public through press conferences. But it is also unfortunate that they did not speak a single truth in their pressers," he further maintained.

To a question, he said that the government in the guise of the FATF wanted to pass another bill, "economic terrorism", which was the most "horrific" bill in the country's history.

"Deceiving and rigging is the primary approach of this government," he alleged, adding that the opposition did not share draft of the amendments on the NAB laws with the government.

"They are telling lies," he further alleged.

To another query about the resignations of two advisers, he said that the government should initiate an inquiry if they were removed on any corruption charges.

Speaking on the occasion, Sherry Rehman accused the government of deceiving the opposition in the FATF-related laws.

"The root cause of the dispute is not the NAB laws, but the FATF laws in which we have been deceived. The bills were passed in the National Assembly on Thursday without taking the [agreed] amendments. We had done our duty by making amendments in the special committee," she added.

On realising that the government will not be able to pass the bills from the Senate, she added that they approached the opposition and agreed on taking the amendments in the FATF-related laws.

"On the NAB amendments, they [government] shared twice a draft, which was nothing but an 'NRO' for themselves...We just told them to keep your NAB with you and we do not want any amendment of any relief," she added.

"I just received a call from [Asif Ali] Zardari Sahib, who had faced the NAB for 11 years, and asked to tell them, we just do not want any amendment in the NAB ordinance...we made it very clear to them," she added.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020