Revival of military courts: NA, Senate sessions summoned

After getting the draft for the revival of military courts approved from the parliamentary committee, the government has summoned National Assembly and Senate sessions for its passage. The Pakistan Peoples' Party (PPP) is the only major party in parliament that has not accorded its approval for reinstating of military courts.
The PPP boycotted the parliamentary committee meeting that approved the draft of the bill on February 28, expressing reservations over the previous performance of the military courts and some of the clauses of new draft. Senator Mushahidullah Khan, parliamentary leader of PML-N in Senate, told Business Recorder that the government remained engaged with the PPP leadership with the objective of the bill being passed unanimously, as "we all want to eliminate the menace of terrorism".
Since it is a constitutional amendment for which a two-third majority is required if the other parties had not supported the bill, then we would have been left with no option but to get the bill passed through joint sitting of parliament, he stated. "I am hopeful that PPP will agree and vote for the bill as it is a national issue. Even if they [PPP] opt to stay away from supporting the bill in Senate, we will pass through a joint sitting of parliament as all the political parties minus PPP have consensus on it," he added.
In 2013 general elections, 6.8 million votes were cast for the PPP which made it the third highest votes recipient. The PML-N won a majority of 14.8 million votes followed by PTI with 7.5 million votes.
If the APC goes ahead and the PML-N which has not been invited and the PTI which has indicated that it may not attend the multi-party conference of the PPP, then the multi-conference will not reflect the majority of the votes cast in 2013 general lections.
PPP Secretary General Senator Farhatullah Babar, however, said the government was bent upon revival of military courts but "we have reservations still which we want to discuss with other political parties".
"If extension to military courts is necessary then our reservations should be addressed. There is a need to discuss under what conditions these courts could be given further extension...we believe it is a national issue and does not belong to any single political party," he added.
He said any extension to the military courts should be through a consensus and not based on the numbers in parliament. "It is a constitutional amendment so it can not be taken lightly," he added. To a question, he said the party could not take any decision whether to support the bill or not before discussing the issue with all the political parties in the multi-conference scheduled for March 04.
"This is a hypothetical question...how can I say that we will support or not as this is the issue for which we have called this multi-party conference," he added. The government needs 70 votes in the 104-member Senate of Pakistan to get the bill passed with two-third majority. The PPP which has 27 seats in Senate will manage to block the government-sponsored bill if it can get the support of two small political parties.
According to Senator Taj Haider, the PPP's parliamentary leader in Senate, his party had the support of Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP), which has three seats, and the Awami National Party (ANP) that has six members in the Senate.
"We can easily reject the bill with the support of these two parties as together our strength becomes 36 (PPP, 27, ANP, 06, and PkMAP, 03). Also, some members will remain absent during the legislation, so it will become difficult for the government to get two-third majority despite support of other parties," he added. If the government fails to pass the bill from Senate with two-third majority, it has the option, under the 18th Constitutional Amendment, to call the joint session of parliament and get the bill passed easily.