- The final draft awaits the result of the parliamentary body’s review.
- PPP calls for restoring the original protections of Article 248.
- The PMLN agrees that the NAB should eventually be abolished.
ISLAMABAD: During the recent discussions between the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) over the proposed 27th Constitutional Amendment, the PPP had raised the demand for lifetime immunity for the president and abolition of the National Accountability Bureau.
Article 248 of the Constitution grants the president immunity from criminal proceedings during his term in office, stipulating that “no criminal proceedings shall be commenced or continued against the president or a governor in any court during his term of office.”
The PPP, however, had sought to extend this protection beyond the term, proposing lifetime immunity. It means that if approved by parliament, no criminal proceedings, old or new, can continue against the president even after he leaves office and during his lifetime.
The party had also demanded the abolition of the NAB, an issue that was part of the Charter of Democracy (CoD) signed between the PPP and the PML-N in 2006.
The CoD had committed to replacing the NAB with an independent accountability commission that would operate transparently under parliamentary oversight.
The final draft of the amendment is expected to take shape after the parliamentary body concludes its review and presents its report to the Senate and the National Assembly.
Senior PPP leader Murtaza Wahab, who was part of the party team that held talks with the PML-N over the proposed 27th Constitutional Amendment, said The news that the PPP had sought to restore the original protection provided under Article 248 for the President, Governors, Prime Minister, Chief Minister and Ministers, which Iftikhar Chaudhry unconstitutionally removed.
He said the PPP also wanted the remaining unimplemented CoD points, including the abolition of the NAB, to be incorporated into the amendment.
Wahab explained that the issues on which consensus was reached among the ruling parties have been included in the draft of the 27th Amendment, while other proposals, such as the abolition of the NAB, for which an agreement could not yet be reached, remain under discussion and have not been ruled out.
He added that even the PML-N shares the view that the NAB should eventually be abolished, in line with the commitment made by both parties under the Charter of Democracy.
Originally published in The News
