26th amendment : Total Control To The Establishment?

Pakistan is going to tamper with its constitution for the 26th time. This time, the 56 laws are to be amended. The law of America was made in 1787, and it has been almost 237 years, and it has been amended 27 times. It has been 51 years since the constitution of Pakistan was drafted, and we are going to amend it for the 26th time. The constitution of Pakistan has been upheld and misused by dictators and establishments a number of times, Non-democratic governments have played with its laws, only the powerful have used the constitution when it was needed; otherwise, it has always been treated as piece of paper.
The text was shared with everyone—the media, the opposition, the government, all the bar councils and after that it was presented; it did not come in the dark of the night, and also imagine that it has been announced that this legal court is being formed, which will now be the new apex court of Pakistan.
There is still a need for debate on legal revision, and it still needs to be seen objectively because if you do not want to fixate on the personality of Qazi Faiz Isa and say do not make a matter of an individual, then in the same way you should not fixate on the personality of Mansoor Ali Shah.
We are lazy people and even when people come out of parliament and ask MPs that you have passed the bill, what was in the bill, then you see a silence; they seem lost on their faces, don’t know what to expect from them, maybe nothing.

You will read the first page, so there is very good news on the first page, You are being told on the first page that for all the citizens of Pakistan, clean environment has become a part of the basic rights.This is a good thing; everybody needs it, but immediately after that, the real plan unfolds.

Destroying The Judiciary

The first action is that the Supreme Court had interpreted Article 63a. Article 63A refers to defectors, those people who exist in the parliament with the mandate of a party and with the affiliation of the party, are a part of that parliamentary party, and the parliamentary party wants that you vote no or yes on the particular bill, and they vote against it. They do not follow the directions of the party; effectively, they defect, so there is a ground for disqualification of such people, and then the Supreme Court said that yes, that disqualification is in its place, but this vote will also be discarded; this vote will also not be counted. What they have done now by amending the translation is that it has been said that the vote that is under 63a will be counted. Even if a person is disqualified, we will count his vote. I think defectors should never be disqualified and their vote should be counted.You may not count it, but let the defectors stay in the parliament. I will tell you the reason why. If I have voted against my party on some important occasion because my party has deviated from the agenda it had given at the time of elections and is doing backdoor dealings with the establishment, then should I not have the right to take this opportunity to vote against my party because I want to make my party accountable? Yes, you should not count my vote so that my vote does not harm them, but this rebellious vote of mine is not counted.If there is a vote against them, take it as a symbolic gesture, and do not disqualify me from the Parliament. Let me stay in the Parliament because not only can I stand up and tell in the Parliament why I voted against my party, if my party feels that someone took me to Punjab House or to such and such house or that I have struck a deal and sold my vote for a few crores, then on the floor of the same Parliament should also hold me accountable to the people.

We have made an amendment to the earlier judicial package for the Election Commission, and they are saying that until the post-retirement period of the Chief Election Commissioner and his membership ends, he will continue to serve his term until his replacement is made. Appointment is not done; now if that appointment becomes a victim of delay for any reason, which is very common in Pakistan, you will enjoy the extra leverage. Secondly, if we want to re-appoint them, we need only two agreements, not an act; those agreements are one National Assembly agreement and one Senate agreement, and that agreement can be brought by anyone. The requirement to pass that agreement is that the people sitting in the Assembly or Senate at that time should be present, that is, the minimum quorum that is required. If that minimum quorum of the National Assembly and Senate is present, then even if half the majority of that minimum quorum says okay, the resolution is passed, then they can bring the resolution, and they should be appointed.
All these sections are for that situation when the ruling party is not in power, that is, the collaborator is not in the government of the establishment, That is why you are giving so much protection. Well, then there is a clause in this regarding the terms of service of the Armed Forces Chief, and he says that this is the reason for the previous scenario. The extension given by the Prime Minister to the Army Chief or any Armed Forces Chief, there was no law in this regard.The Supreme Court said, Why should we rule whether giving an extension is legal or illegal? You have the Parliament; you frame the law; why are you making such a big issue? In an extension is legal or illegal, you have the Parliament, you frame the law, why are you making such a big issue? In an executive there is the Prime Minister, under him is the Defense Secretary, under him is the Defense Minister, the Defense Secretary and then the Armed Forces Chiefs, so this is your domain, it is the Executive’s domain, this law was made and under that law, it was said that their term is 3 years and their extension can be given by 3 years. Reappraise Chief The tenure of service will be decided under the existing law, i.e. their tenure will be 3 years only and they can get an extension of 3 years. So if you read till here, you will say that this is stating the obvious. This is that you are restating the already existing law. A clause has been added below it. That clause now says that if this existing law is to be changed, repealed or amended, then first you will have to change this clause, which is now going to become a part of the law. You will have to amend it. That means if this amendment to the law is passed and it becomes a part of the law, this new clause or this new clause, then until you change this clause by bringing another amendment to the law, you cannot change the existing law. For that, two thirds are required. So, now for one thing, you need the simple permission of the parliament. for that, you should bring first to third amendment So, that is probably because if tomorrow any government comes and says that no, we say as a rule that there will be no extension anywhere, neither will there be an extension in the Election Commission, nor will there be an extension for any other important position, nor will there be an extension for any judge, nor will there be an extension for any General, then they say that you cannot amend the law, so neither expand it nor shorten it, first change the law, well, there is another thing inside this that the monetary issues of our cantonment, the cantonments are those institutions which come under military control, are counted within military lands and 64 percent of Karachi is cantonment, a crisis was created for the cantonment when the Sindh High Court decided, which is being appealed in the Supreme Court, that you cannot collect property tax, the property tax is no longer in the domain of centre, it is in the provincial domain, so the provincial government will collect, the Sindh government will calculate what is due and after that the property tax will also be levied on them When it will be passed, the Cantonment started crying, How will we run our case now, All our funds are gone, whereas Cantonment is a profit-making area.
Through the amendment, which is in the federal legislative list, by making changes in the cantonment areas, all the local taxes levied in the cantonment have been made a federal domain, so in a way, a solution has been found for the decision of the Sindh High Court, which had said that these provinces will take property tax.

Through this legal amendment, A federal constitution court is being formed. We are also being told that the people of our choice will become judges in the federal constitution court. We are also being told that this constitutional court, which will be formed, will take over all the cases of the Supreme Court in which there are talks about the fundamental rights of the law, in the context of the law and in the context of the fundamental rights of the law. We are also being told that this constitutional court has to favour the establishment and the current PDM has these conditions, which PTI is especially raising. Then why is it in this amendment that neither any judicial court in the future nor any Supreme Court or any High Court in the future can hear any case on any amendment of the law or any amendment of the law. The decisions given by the Federal Court will bind the Supreme Court. The binding on the Supreme Court is okay. The Supreme Court is bound by the decisions of the Federal Court. Their Supreme Court is bound but the Federal Court is bound by the decisions of the Supreme Court. It is not binding. Okay, so tomorrow if the court has given a decision on any point, then the Supreme Court will follow it, but if the Supreme Court has given a decision,. The court will not follow it, so what will happen with this? One more thing is happening with this: you are throwing your 76 years of jurisprudence in the dustbin.

Be it civil, criminal or constitutional, or if a new legal issue is coming up, how to approach that issue—these terms, these rules, these approaches have been decided somewhere in the past, so we follow that past approach so that there is a uniformity. When you say that no decision of the Supreme Court will be binding on the legal court, then you have freed the legal court from all the precedents till date, so the legal court can now adopt a new tradition from beginning, whatever we know, the law, which we believe, the convention, which we understand as the tradition
will be thrown in the dustbin, a new tradition can be born. Tell me who will appoint the judge of this legal court, the current prime minister of the country will decide  a single person will be her nominee, the prime minister will ask the chief, the chief will issue a notification, then the rest of the judges of the legal court, then the prime minister and this The Chief Justice will sit and decide once this judicial court starts functioning, five or six judges will be in it and then in the future if any Chief Justice will have to be found, who will decide that and now who will decide the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court because the Supreme Court is already existing, so for that they have said that there will be an eight member committee of the National Assembly, otherwise it used to be on the basis of seniority, it will not happen who will be included in that committee, there will be representation of parliamentary parties in that committee according to their seats in the Parliament, that is, whichever ruling party is there, it will always have a majority in that committee of eight, so that ruling party will now decide who will be the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and Who will be the next Chief Justice of the judicial court, first the Prime Minister will decide, but in the future and from whom will he decide, the top three will decide Among the seniors, that is, as soon as you start being counted in the top three, then you start looking towards the ruling party and start listening to the cases of the ruling party with leniency or, what do you call them, target them so that no decision is passed against them, because tomorrow they have to make your job permanent and if you become more principle-loving, more law-loving, more  then you will be the ruling party because it has also been said that now whoever does not become the Chief Justice or whoever does not go, he will have to retire, right? What do they do? Then it is right, well, how long will they serve, This is also a big thing. The tenure of any judge of the Supreme Court is not being increased. A judge of the Supreme Court will retire at the age of 65 years. Only the tenure is being increased. The judges of the judicial court will be able to serve till the age of 68 years if those judges are from the Supreme Court.

Justifying Missing Persons

If there is a decision in court, then you go against it, and now the court can also hear it directly. Now another very important amendment has been made in this with reference to 199 and it has been done that first look, There was an exception in 199 that any person who is a part of the Pakistani Armed Forces, his service, that is, if he works in the Army, Navy or Air Force, then his terms of service, his service conditions and the matters which result from his service, that is, his posting, his transfer, his rest, his dues his arrears, all these matters which are related to the job or his promotion, the High Court cannot hear it, it is not its domain, okay, they have put a phrase in it and what phrase did they put? Earlier the language was that any matter arising out of the terms of service of an individual which is subject to the armed forces law and any other person and any matter arising from the functions performed under any national security law. Service has been converted from function to service. So, this is what happens in my job. The functions are such that What am I doing while doing my job? Function is a bigger word than service function, how am I using it with my money and what is the status I am giving to it and the national security law is not the armed forces law, that is, you are giving coverage to the police as well as the FIA ​​as well as all the law enforcement agencies and the IB as well that any such thing which you are performing under any national security law and if anything is coming out of that performance, then the High Court cannot hear it. So by playing with words, they have taken a method that for example, tomorrow If you go and say that the man was taken away by mistake, they will say that we picked him up under such and such law; you cannot question this, okay, where did I pick him up and where did I not keep him? This is a matter of national security because the National Security can amend the law in this way, and tomorrow they will also put it in the National Security Laws. Many provisions will not be the authority of national security because the National Security can amend the law in this way, tomorrow they will also put it in the National Security Laws, Many provisions will not be the authority of the High Court, they will say further, National Security will say that we cannot do anything, that man does not even need to be from the army, he can be an FIA person or a police person.

In these times a civilian can be tried in a military court, It was being said that there was a complaint in this regard in the first case, okay, but that is not there in the one that came before the media; if it comes again, then I don’t know, The trial of civilians in the military court, the debate that is on the appeal staged in the Supreme Court, now the legal court will hear it, the current Supreme Court will not, the bar, the lawyer will have to make this debate a little objective, This is neither the issue of Qazi Faza sahab nor the issue of Mansoor Ali Shah sahab, Look at it objectively. You are destroying the structure itself, you are completely destroying the judiciary You are destroying the system of your presidents, your tradition. You are going to create a new jurisprudence from the beginning and you are handing over all the matters to those who have nothing to do with jurisprudence.