PTI 'decides to boycott' voting on 'controversial' tweaks to Constitution

• PTI warns lawmakers against taking part in voting in NA, Senate.
• Says workers will protest outside residences of those who do so.
• Sources say PTI and JUI-F will hold one final round of talks today.

ISLAMABAD: In a major development, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Sunday announced boycotting the voting in both the National Assembly and the Senate over what it terms "controversial and non-transparent" amendments to the Constitution which are set to be tabled by the ruling coalition in parliament today.

"The group occupying the [lower and upper] Houses has no moral, democratic and constitutional justification to change the Constitution. Enforcing the law of the jungle via constitutional tweaks is equivalent to burying the democracy [for good]," read the statement issued by the former ruling party's political committee.

The Imran Khan-founded party's decision came as 11 of its lawmakers have gone incommunicado including two senators — confirmed by party Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan — and nine members of the National Assembly (MNAs) ahead of the parliament's session scheduled to take place later today.

NA Opposition Leader Omar Ayub has confirmed that the party hasn't been able to establish contact with seven lawmakers.

Party sources said that its MNAs Zain Qureshi, Zahoor Qureshi, Aslam Ghumman, Usman Ali, Riaz Fatyana, Choudhary Ilyas, Miqdad Hussain, Aurangzeb Khan Khichi and Mubarak Zeb Khan could not be reached along with Senators Zarqa Suharwardy and Faisal Saleem.

The coalition government was initially set to present the legislation on Saturday but decided to defer it at the request of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman who said that his party would be able to cast its votes in favour of the 26th constitutional amendment after receiving a response from the PTI.

The issue has rather been engulfed in ambiguity and uncertainty and has been subjected to severe opposition from the PTI which has time again expressed concerns over the prospective judiciary-oriented legislation provisioning a fixed three-year term of the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP), establishment of constitutional benches, restructuring of the Supreme Judicial Council, and the formation of a special Special Parliamentary Committee which will suggest names from amongst the three most senior judges of the apex court for the CJP's appointment.

A day earlier, Maulana Fazl — while holding a joint presser with PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari — said that the JUI-F had reached a consensus on the constitutional package after the government agreed to remove all those parts which were not acceptable to them, adding that now no major point of difference existed between his party and the ruling coalition.

However, in its statement today, the PTI's political committee reiterated the party's resolve to resist the prospective legal reforms and said protests would be held outside the residences of those lawmakers who would take part in voting in the lower and upper houses of parliament.

"The NA and Senate members [attending the sessions] are bound to abide by the party policy and the PTI founder's instructions. The PTI workers will hold sit-ins in front of the lawmakers' houses who will take part in the voting process," it warned.

Reacting to PTI's decision against becoming part of the legislation, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said legal reforms would be passed today come what may, claiming that the ruling coalition's numbers were complete.

Meanwhile, sources have told Geo News that another round of talks will be held between the PTI and the JUI-F wherein the former's delegation will visit Fazl's residence.

There will be a final consultation between the two parties on the legal reforms, during which the former ruling party will apprise the JUI-F head of the party's stance on the matter, the sources added.