The government appears intent on sticking to its timeline, and the opposition’s vote of no-confidence looks set to come up for voting on March 28. The session has been a little late in being summoned, because the requirement was of 14 days after the requisition was filed, which was March 8. As the House will meet on March 21, that means 13 days will have passed. Then if the motion is moved at once, the Constitution provides between three and seven days before it must be voted on. The outer limit takes Parliament to March 28, which is one day after the ruling party intends to hold a public meeting at D-Chowk to dissuade MNAs from voting. There may have been some delay in summoning the session, and the three-to-seven day limit on the motion itself has definitely been missed, as the motion was filed on March 8, and thus voting would fall due by March 15, however, any talk of taking the matter to court should go no further. Apart from the fact that the vote is taking place, there is also Article 254 of the Constitution which condones any delay in any act required by the Constitution.
Be that as it may, the delay has been very expensive. Whatever the government might say, the economy was not doing particularly well, but ever since the no-trust motion was moved, the markets have been in turmoil, and the rupee has hit new lows. This is not so much because speculators have entered the market, but because brokers have turned speculators. Because of this, an early vote would have been helpful.
The excuse given, that the National Assembly hall would host the OIC Foreign Ministers’ conference and the Senate hall was under repair, ignores the constitutional provision which leaves the Speaker to select a place for the session, and in no way specifies Parliament Building, or even Islamabad. There seems no reason why the Punjab Assembly building in Lahore, for example, could not have been used. PPP chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s threat to hinder the conference, hastily withdrawn presumably when the implications sank in, must be seen in that context. Leave alone hat such threats come more readily to the PTI, which still intends to have a human gauntlet for the PTI dissident MNAs to run, if they try to go to Parliament to vote on the no-confidence motion. All sides must try to eschew any unconstitutional behaviour, and should avoid turning Parliament into a battlefield, as it has been too often before, leaving a constitutional process to unfold as envisaged by the Constitution and the rules of the House.
