• Final draft awaits parliamentary body’s review outcome.
• PPP calls for restoring original Article 248 protections.
• PMLN agrees NAB should eventually be abolished.

ISLAMABAD: During the recent discussions between the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) on the proposed 27th Constitutional Amendment, the PPP had come up with the demand for lifetime immunity for the president and abolition of the National Accountability Bureau.

Article 248 of the Constitution provides the president with immunity from criminal proceedings during the term of office, stipulating that “no criminal proceedings whatsoever shall be instituted or continued against the president or a governor in any court during his term of office.”

The PPP, however, had sought to extend this protection beyond the term, proposing lifetime immunity. It means if parliament approves it, no criminal proceeding, old or new, can continue against the president even after he leaves the office and during his lifetime.

The party had also demanded the abolition of NAB, an issue that was part of the Charter of Democracy (CoD) signed between the PPP and PML-N in 2006. 

The CoD had pledged to replace NAB with an independent accountability commission that would function transparently under parliamentary oversight.

The final draft of the amendment is expected to be shaped after the parliamentary body concludes its review and presents its report to the Senate and National Assembly.

PPP’s senior leader Murtaza Wahab, who was part of the party’s team that held discussions with the PML-N on the proposed 27th Constitutional Amendment, told The News that the PPP had sought to restore the original protection under Article 248 to the president, governors, prime minister, chief minister and ministers, which Iftikhar Chaudhry unconstitutionally removed.

He said the PPP also wanted the remaining unimplemented points of the CoD — including the abolition of the NAB — to be incorporated in the amendment.

Wahab explained that issues on which consensus was achieved between the ruling parties have been included in the draft 27th Amendment, while other proposals, such as the abolition of NAB, for which an agreement could not be reached yet, remain under discussion and have not been discarded.

He added that even the PML-N shares the view that NAB should eventually be abolished, in line with the commitment made by both parties under the Charter of Democracy.

Originally published in The News