Amendments in Army Act

The issue may have generated a raging controversy but its resolution has been just as anodyne. When on Friday Federal Minister for Defence Pervez Khattak tabled the Pakistan Army (Amendment) Act, 2020, the government and the opposition had already reached a rare consensus on it. As per the proposed legislation, 64 years is the maximum age limit for the three services chiefs as well as Chairman of the Joint chiefs of Staff Committee, and the prime minister has the prerogative to give extension, with the President's approval, to any of them after completion of their normal tenure at the age of 60 years. The legislation is generally seen as person-specific because of the careless manner in which it was earlier handled by the government.

The decision of the two main opposition parties, the PML-N and the PPP to support the amendments has drawn surprise and criticism, in equal measure, from their supporters. The only explanation Nawaz League senior leader Khawaja Asif could offer for going along with the government was that his party was obeying the line of its supreme leader, Mian Nawaz Sharif, whose direction was not to oppose the legislation in Parliament. As for the criticism, he said it was justified for the time being, but time would tell Mian Sahib's decision was right and justified. PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, though, seemed to express his unease in another way as he took issue with procedural details, saying parliamentary rules and regulations were not being followed in making amendments to the Army Act. For some reason better known to it, the government, indeed, acted with unwarranted haste, calling sessions of the two houses of parliament on a 24-hour notice, and also bypassing proper legislative process. For all intents and purposes the amendments are a reality now.

The issue had assumed so much hype because the government repeatedly committed procedural faux pas in announcing a three-year extension for the incumbent, landing the case in the Supreme Court. To its credit, the apex court accorded due respect to the principle of separation of powers, asking Parliament to remove the ambiguity in the relevant clause of the Army Act, and settle the case at hand. This was not the first time though that a prime minister had used his discretionary powers for the purpose. Former PPP PM Yousuf Raza Gilani had granted a three-year extension in Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani's term as COAS. That decision too had not gone down well with many for the same reasons as the present one. Skeptics have been raising objections to the justification that the security environment calls for continuity, arguing that, like in the case of governments, what is important under all circumstances is institutional strength, individuals come and go. At the back of such argumentation, of course, are concerns rooted in an unhappy civil-military relationship. Be that as it may, it should be a matter of satisfaction that the controversy has now been resolved through democratic consent rather than a court order.