Wednesday, Feb 12, 2003
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By B. Muralidhar Reddy
The amendment to the Constitution through what is known as the Legal Framework Order (LFO). The apex court verdict is of enormous political significance as opposition parties have questioned the right of Gen. Musharraf to amend laws and the Constitution. In its judgment, the court held the law as "discriminatory" and "violative" of Article 25 of the Constitution. Incidentally, this is the first decision of the apex court disproving of any act of Gen. Musharraf. It had first validated the military takeover on October 12, 1999, invoking the `doctrine of necessity', and all subsequent actions were approved on the touchstone of this Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) Constitution after the October 1999 coup. The Government had defended the legislation, saying that Gen. Musharraf was empowered by the Supreme Court to prescribe any qualification or disqualification for Members of Parliament. The Supreme Court made no mention of the LFO 2002, whose legality was called into question by a number of petitioners, including the Millat Party senior vice-president and Information Minister in the Musharraf Government, Javed Jabbar. The Government, 19 days after the holding of general election, had amended the Conduct of General Elections (Eighth Amendment) Order 2002, and added Article 8AA, providing that "a person shall be disqualified from being elected or chosen as, and from being, a member of the Senate if, having been a candidate for election to the National Assembly or a Provincial Assembly at the elections held under this order, he has not been elected to such Assembly.'' The verdict of the apex court is bound to make the opposition as well as the lawyers' community to challenge the controversial amendments made by Gen. Musharraf to the Constitution. In the course of the arguments in the current case, the Jamali Government had informed the Supreme Court last week that the amendments made by him were now a part of the Constitution and did not need validation by Parliament. The LFO has been a major source of friction between the Opposition parties and the Jamali Government since the October general election. The former not only dubbed the amendments illegal and unconstitutional but also proclaimed that they do not recognise the amended Constitution. Tension, on account of the LFO, came to the fore at the inaugural session of the National Assembly when the Opposition insisted that it had taken oath under the 1973 Constitution. Subsequently, talks for a coalition between the `king's party' led by Mr. Jamali and the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), alliance of six religious parties, fell through on the question of the amendments. The contention of the MMA and other opposition groups was that Parliament alone had the right to amend the Constitution. Among the amendments to the Constitution made by Gen. Musharraf are creation of a National Security Council formalising the role of the military in governance, his own continuation as President and Chief of Army Staff for a further period of five years and powers to the President to dissolve the National and Provincial Assemblies invoking the clause of ``national security and interest''. The Jamali Government is certain to face the heat on the LFO when the National Assembly meets in the last week of February after the elections to the Senate — the equivalent of Rajya Sabha. The Government, in its statement, said that the LFO was both legal and valid and was enacted by the President by exercising his powers granted by the Supreme Court in the Zafar Ali Shah case. The case relates to validation of the October 1999 military takeover under the doctrine of `necessity'. The Government argued that all the candidates from all political parties took part in the October elections. "The electorate has voted and Parliament has been elected under the Constitution as amended by the LFO.'' The statement said that no provision of the LFO needed Parliament's sanction or approval either for its validity or continuity. The Government further stated that the President's powers of amending the Constitution did not end on October 10, 2002, and he was fully empowered to promulgate any law and had acted lawfully. Certain provisions of the Constitution were revived on November 16, and other provisions are to be revived after the holding of the Senate elections.
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