THE special parliamentary committee, formed on March 12, when the parliament began its first session, to review the 133 ordinances that the interim administration promulgated, has placed its report, recommending that 98 of the ordinances could be passed into law in their present form. The committee has also recommended that 15 of the ordinances could be passed into law after respective ministries amend them. But it has said that 16 of the ordinances, including the ones on enforced disappearances, the Anti-Corruption Commission, the National Human Rights Commission and the police commission, should not be approved. And it has noted that the 16 ordinances should be subjected to further scrutiny and could be later reintroduced in a more comprehensive form. The committee has, however, recommended that four ordinances, three of them related to the Supreme Court affairs, should be repealed. All this suggests that the ordinances viewed essential to stringently deal with involuntary disappearances, strengthen anti-corruption efforts, ensure an effective human rights regime, improve police governance, enable the independent functioning of the judiciary by way of the Supreme Court secretariat and attend to issues of the appointment of judges to both divisions of the Supreme Court are not to be passed into law.
This is where the issues become troubling. The treasury bench has proposed the inclusion of the requirement of prior permission to investigate allegations against security forces and the exclusion of detention on grounds of national security from the Enforced Disappearances (Prevention and Remedies) Ordinance 2025, which defines involuntary disappearances as an offence taking place continuously. As for National Human Rights Commission Ordinance 2025, the treasury bench has questioned how the Human Rights Commission would work without being under any ministry and has sought the government’s permission, instead of court orders, for the arrest of the accused. The treasury bench seems to be forgetting that the Human Rights Commission should function as a statutory independent agency of the state, the way the Anti-Corruption Commission and the police commission should function, adequately armed, free of any executive influence. Complaints of police misconduct should be investigated independently of the executive and of the police administration. The repeal of the three ordinances on the Supreme Court affairs would frustrate the democratic separation of the judiciary from the executive. The ordinances are meant to grant administrative and judicial independence to the judiciary. This is unfortunate as the repeal of the ordinances would keep the controls of the transfer, promotion and discipline of subordinate judges under the executive, frustrating the official separation of the judiciary from the executive that took place on November 1, 2007 after a tussle since December 1999.
The special parliamentary committee as well as the ruling party must not let meaningful democratic reforms lapse in partisan interests.
