A commission formed to probe into bonded labour by the Supreme Court on January 2 revealed that none of the brick kilns in the federal capital are registered with any government organisation.
The writer is president of the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development And Transparency.
THE good news is that the debate on the use of ordinances as the preferred mode of legislation in Pakistan has recently gained momentum. Not only is the PTI-led federal government being criticised for promulgating almost as many ordinances as the bills passed during the past 28 months of its rule, questions are also being raised about the past governments led by other parties like the PPP and PML-N in the context of promulgation of ordinances.
The most recent development in this context is the motion moved by 34 senators led by Raja Zafarul Haq, leader of the opposition in the Senate, on Jan 1, which sought discussion on “the alarming propensity of the federal government to usurp and subvert parliamentary and provincial rights guaranteed in the Constitution by attempting to rule the country by ordinances….” The motion, which equated the use of ordinances with ‘usurpation and subv