On Monday, Treasury members disrupted the Opposition Leader’s opening speech on the budget, something that has never happened in the country’s parliamentary history. Yesterday’s session was even worse, with abuses hurled and punches thrown. The move was spearheaded by two federal ministers, which led the opposition to claim that it enjoyed the support of the PM. The disruption took place despite the fact that the strategy for the budget session had already been finalised in a meeting of the House Business Advisory Committee comprising representatives of all the parties. It was the Speaker’s duty to intervene and let the Opposition Leader complete his speech. That he failed to do so, further strengthens the view that instead of being an independent custodian of the House, he acts as a PTI loyalist.
The Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the National Assembly (2007) provide the Speaker ample powers to maintain decorum in the House. Speaker Asad Qaiser’s partiality has all these years stood in his way to take action against offenders who are mostly from the ruling alliance. He has again and again deviated from parliamentary traditions and violated parliamentary procedures to please the PTI leadership.
Treasury members have been allowed to hurl insults on the opposition leaders in their speeches but the opposition legislators are often not allowed to respond. Failure to control a nonstop torrent of unparliamentary language has led to brawls in the House. Bad manners being infectious, the opposition too has at times acted in a way that cannot be defended
The Speaker has violated parliamentary traditions to please a vengeful government. He has the authority to issue production orders of Opposition members put under detention in order to enable them to attend the National Assembly session. The Speaker has avoided issuing production orders of those who were specially targeted by the government.
Things have come to a pass where serious debate is increasingly becoming impossible in the National Assembly. There is a need for level-headed leaders on both sides to save the Assembly. Recourse to unparliamentary language has to be stopped, the opposition given more time to speak as is done in democracies, the Speaker needs to disallow any interruption from the floor during a speech, particularly when a parliamentary leader is speaking and the Opposition Leader must not be stopped whenever he rises to speak.
