Fate of legislation done by Executive: Actions taken under ordinance to become extinc
 

ISLAMABAD: All actions, including disbandment of an organisation, taken under a presidential ordinance will stand scrapped if this legislation done by the Executive is disapproved by the Senate or the National Assembly or both.“All the actions introduced will become void ab initio after the passage of a disapproving motion by either House,” prominent lawyer Barrister Omar Sajjad told The News. He said an analogy can be withdrawn from a Supreme Court decision which ruled while striking down the new contempt law that the old piece on the same subject stands revived. The new law had repealed the previous legislation. Omar Sajjad said that an ordinance is promulgated by the Executive which is a temporary legislation and not a permanent law. It can become a law only if the Parliament approves it.Last week, President Dr Arif Alvi signed eight ordinances. One of them pertained to an amendment in the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO). The government is hesitant to introduce all or some of these ordinances in the Senate despite insistence by the opposition parties, fearing that it may disapprove them.Under the rules, an ordinance instantly becomes extinct after the passage of a disapproving motion by either parliamentary chamber.While the government pushed, ignoring the opposition’s intense hue and cry, introduction and passage of the ordinances in the National Assembly, it is evident from the Constitution, a fact that the government also knows that none of them will become law unless it will be cleared by the Senate, which is in no mood to pass them. Despite bulldozing of a record number of 11 ordinances in a few minutes without debate through the National Assembly, they can be shot down by the opposition-dominated Upper House through disapproving motions.Another legal expert said that various interpretations are available about the legality of the actions introduced under an ordinance when it is in operation for any length of life. Therefore, this question will eventually go to a superior court for elucidation and clarification of various constitutional provisions.Sometime back, the opposition parties in the Senate discarded an ordinance relating to the Pakistan Medical & Dental Council (PM&DC) through a disapproving motion. The government waited for a few weeks and issued another ordinance, abolishing the PM&DC and bringing in an altogether new structure. The opposition plans to repeat its action against the new ordinance. However, a question rises whether the action like the disbandment of the PM&DC which was taken when this ordinance was in force, would also stand reversed after the Senate will disapprove it.The expert explained that one explanation is that an ordinance being an Executive act would become dead after either House would reject it. “Issuance of ordinance is an emergency measure taken by the Executive which can’t be liberally exercised.”Another interpretation, he said, is provided in Article 89 of the Constitution. It says that an ordinance shall have the same force and effect as an Act of Parliament and shall be subject to like restrictions as the power of the legislature to make law.An ordinance has 120-day life unless it is passed by the Parliament before that period or is extended only once for a similar period by either parliamentary chamber otherwise it will expire.http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/com/cwEr/~4/Z_7K3Ou0-6g

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