In terms of policymaking, the PTI relies primarily on presidential ordinances, bypassing the conventional process of tabling a law in both Houses of Parliament and getting it passed from there. The most extreme example of this convenient and imperfect preference to lawmaking is the PTI government’s National Accountability Bureau Ordinance (NABO) that has been amended for a third time in less than a month, making a mockery of parliamentary norms in the process. The latest amendment gives powers to the President to remove the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman, taking powers away from the Supreme Judicial Council. The PTI has been looking for a legal path to extend the current NAB chairman’s tenure, but has been unsuccessful so far. Making the termination of the NAB chairman the prerogative of the executive through a shabbily framed law passed temporarily as an ordinance suggests that the PTI is nervous over how much differently it would be treated by a new setup.
This is a valid fear considering how the outgoing chairman has run NAB as an unapologetically partisan institution focused solely on opposition party leaders and bureaucrats who worked with them when they were in power. The third NABO amendment only further discredits the NAB as an effective accountability watchdog out to curb corruption, and is rather increasingly being perceived as an extension of the government. Bullying tactics that are fueled by the fear of prolonged incarcerations without sufficient proof of arrest coupled with highhandedness and harassment during interrogations is all the NAB is now known for. With virtually nothing to show for the plethora of selective investigations, arrests and detentions it has made in the past three years, its reputation as the current regime’s attack dog is all but evident and clear. The original NAB Ordinance promulgated by General Musharraf is an inherently flawed law that gave him sweeping powers to punish political opponents under the farce of accountability. No government that has since followed attempted to meaningfully amend this law and rather used it against their respective rivals as well. The PTI, a party whose core message was to address ‘rampant corruption’, has gone down the same route with much more intensity, but without any results. With two years left in its tenure and a lot of political uncertainty in the air, its multiple amendments to the NAB Ordinance come off as an attempt to secure itself from what it has meted out to others rather than a meaningful attempt at reform.
