Government faces opposition against 22nd Constitution Amendment Bill

The government of Pakistan ruled by the Pakistan People’s Party put forward the dual nationality bill in the parliament in order to make an amendment to the constitution of the country. The bill is termed as the 22nd Constitution Amendment Bill and was put
forward by the Law Minister Farooq H. Naek. However, the bill received widespread opposition both from the members of the ruling party as well as the opposition parties.

Soon after the bill was put forward, the Awami National Party (ANP) as well as the PML-N walked out of the parliament in protest.

The wordings of the bill is as follows, “A person shall be disqualified from being elected or chosen as, and from being, a member of the parliament, if — he ceases to be a citizen of Pakistan, or has acquired citizenship of a foreign state, except a state
with which the federal government has a dual nationality arrangement under the law, before or after the commencement of the constitution (twenty second amendment) Act, 2012.”

According to the bill, the members of the parliament who have a dual nationality can continue to perform their duties in that office. This is in contradiction to the stance of the Supreme Court of Pakistan which had recently suspended quite a few members
of parliament based on the fact that they held dual nationalities. The suspension period was said to last till the time that the members of parliament that were dual nationality holders would let go of the other foreign nationality. Rehman Malik was among
the suspended members of the parliament.

According to the Law Minister Naek of the country, the overseas Pakistani should also have the right to become members of the parliament if they are allowed to vote as well.

The bill asks for the members of parliament who have nationalities of the countries with which Pakistan is under the agreement for dual nationality, to be allowed to become members of parliament. There are in all a total of 16 countries that have a dual
nationality agreement with Pakistan. These include US, Canada and the United Kingdom among others.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=28614

Posted by Rabiya Maqbool on Jul 11 2012. Filed under Pakistan, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry