NA session may take up 20th amendment on Wednesday

President, Asif Ali Zardari has summoned the session of the lower house of the Parliament to meet at 1700 hours Wednesday, in exercise of powers conferred by clause (1) of Article 54 of the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

An official at National Assembly Secretariat informed APP that it would be 39th session of the 4th Parliamentary year of the present National Assembly and would take up important legislation regarding validation of the by-elections.

"This session will hopefully take up the proposed 20th constitutional amendment to validate the by-elections," the official said.

He explained that objections were raised on the by-elections conducted during the period when constitution of Election Commission was not complete. "This session will also focus on addressing these lacunae."

After the validation of the by-elections was challenged in the Supreme Court, the Election Commission was asked adopt a mechanism for validation of these elections.

In view of this situation, the official said, as the Election Commission was not complete as per requirement of the Constitution after the 18th amendment, validity of by-election was called in question.

"Therefore, now to validate that act of the Commission and the CEC, the Parliament will be giving constitutional cover to by-election through the envisaged 20th constitutional amendment," the official stated.

When asked about constitutional requirement for National Assembly to be in session for 130 days, he said, so far the House had been in session for 115 days and one more session will have to be summoned prior to expiry of constitutional tenure of the House on March 17, 2012.

He also mentioned that in new amendment, the Parliament may establish that since the Election Commission was not complete, the Chief Election Commissioner could have acted on behalf of the Commission.

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2012