The ides of march
WE have all heard the warning of the soothsayer to Julius Caesar “Beware the Ides of March” in the famous play of William Shakespeare called Julius Caesar.
These few words coined by the great playwright gained an immortal status and branded the phrase and the date March 15 with a dark, gloomy, sinister and frightening connotation.
Politics in Pakistan today has taken on a very frightening and ugly hue.The opposition parties have tabled their long-awaited no confidence motion against the incumbent PM and his regime and the government of Imran Khan has come out fighting tooth and nail to defeat the efforts of the opposition parties.
Imran Khan appears to have decided that defeat is not acceptable at any cost and he will do whatever it takes to avoid the political embarrassment of being thrown out by a vote of no confidence.
Politics now is reduced to personal attacks and exchange of rather unsavory barbs from both sides.
According to the PM all the top political leaders are thieves, robbers and corrupt to the core.
The opposition responded by accusing the PM’s wife of taking bribes for postings and transfers in the Punjab.
Both sides appear to be hell bent on achieving their objective and the process appears to be fraught with dangers, pitfalls and the possibility of mortal danger to democracy in the country.
The political arena now looks like the Roman Coliseum where gladiators are preparing to fight to the death and the elected government of the day is prepared to stretch the limits of a constitutional process to the maximum and risk the derailment of the democratic process in the country inviting another intervention by non-democratic forces.
The government of Imran Khan have decided that their members and coalition partners will not attend the assembly session on the day of voting on the no-confidence motion.
The announcement of the government plan has triggered a debate and the legal experts are now debating the floor crossing clause in the constitution.
According to the government ministers the PM as the leader of the party can tell the Speaker of the assembly that if any PTI MNA takes part in the voting process against the wishes of the party leadership it will amount to floor crossing and going against the party line and as such he or she should be disqualified and the vote cast reject immediately.
Legal experts and constitutional lawyers such as Aitaz Ahsan have disagreed with this interpretation put forward by the PTI ministers and legal experts.
According to some prominent Jurists and leading lawyers of the country the relevant clause of the constitution dealing with disqualification can only be implemented when an MNA casts his or her vote against the wishes of the party and thereby crosses the floor to the other side.
The very act of vote casting and the subsequent counting of his vote will mean that he or she is now guilty of floor crossing and should be taken to task under the law of the land and the constitutional provisions.
The PTI ministers want to disqualify such members BEFORE the casting of the vote and this amounts to punishing the member for his intentions instead of actions and this is nothing but making a mockery of the law.
According to the constitutional provisions the Speaker cannot disqualify any member at his own whim.
The role of the Speaker is that of an umpire in the process of voting.If he believes that a certain member has crossed the floor he is authorized to send a reference to the Election Commission and the EC will then hold the required hearings and then decide if the member should be disqualified or not.
Even if the member is disqualified by the EC the concerned member will still have the option to appeal to the Supreme Court.
The contention of the Imran Khan regime that the Speaker should disqualify all PTI members who attend the Assembly session on the day of voting is nothing short of ignorance of the law and a deliberate attempt to bulldoze their will on Parliament without regard to the law and the requirements of the Constitution.
This bizarre attitude of the government party is surprising and strange when they keep shouting from the roof tops that the opposition parties do not have the required number of 172.
If the rulting party is serious about their interpretation of the floor crossing clause the Speaker is very likely to reject the votes of the PTI MNAs voting against their own party.
Based on this method, the Speaker could very easily rule that the vote of no confidence has been defeated and prorogue the assembly, and the PM will declare victory and rejoice in the results even though all this will be against all canons of justice and the dictates of the Constitution.
In such a situation the opposition will certainly petition the Supreme Court and the aftermath is really scary as the situation could really spiral out of control with dreadful consequences for the nation.
—The writer is Professor of History, based in Islamabad.
