Pak Govt drafts new law to save NRO beneficiaries' skins - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

The Pakistan People's Party may not have made any efforts to defend the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), but it has hastily prepared a new law to save the NRO beneficiaries of the party. The proposed law, planned to be introduced any day as an ordinance, has been finalised at the highest-level meetings and a copy of the proposed draft has also been handed over to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), sources said. The Section 32(b) of the proposed law states that all the cases and appeals, pending under the NAB Ordinance in any court, shall proceed from the stage at which they were pending, without the necessity of recalling any witnesses or recording any evidence that may have been recorded, The News reports. It also says that all the inquiries, investigations and proceedings pending with the NAB shall stand transferred to the new accountability commission, to be established under the fresh law. By invoking the Section (24) of the proposed law, the new accountability commission, working under the tight control of the Federal Law Ministry, would be able to get corruption cases of its choice thrown out easily. It also says that no holder of public office shall be prosecuted after three years of the expiry of his term or of his ceasing to hold office, for an offence, which he is alleged to have committed during his tenure. Legal experts say the new law is extremely weak, ineffectual and vulnerable to manipulation by the government.