Fettered Sovereignty of Parliament #3: What's not good for people of Balochistan is good for people of Pakistan
On the latest amendment in the FI Bill 2022
I will keep this one short.
When I wrote the below piece on FI Bill 2020, I was hoping it would be one and done.
Unfortunately, it appears that the learned counsel, supreme court, and parliamentarians (the representative of the people) aren’t done making a fool of the general population.
This is the news today
The law, titled the Foreign Investment (Promotion and Protection) Act, 2022, was passed by both houses of parliament on Tuesday and paved the way for a settlement deal between the government and Canadian company Barrick Gold for the reconstitution, and eventually, revival of the long-stalled mining initiative in Balochistan’s Chagai district.
It aims to protect investors from unnecessary court proceedings and other hassles and has been a cause of discord within the ruling coalition, with several parties, including key allies BNP and JUI-F, raising objections that it is against the rights of people of Balochistan.
To placate the allies, ministers from the PML-N, which leads the ruling coalition, assured first during the National Assembly (NA) session on Tuesday and later after a cabinet meeting the same day that the law would be amended to address their grievances.
Subsequently, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar presented the bill for amendments to the law in the Senate today.
The bill, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, stated that the law, which “extends to the whole of Pakistan”, be amended to specify that “for … Balochistan, it should only apply to the qualified investment of Reko Diq project as mentioned in schedules and annexures of this act”.
The amendment bill added: “The purpose of the subject amendment is to clarify the scope and application of the Foreign Investment (Promotion and Protection Act), 2022.”
The amendment has to be approved by the NA before it is finalised.
The bill for the amendment was passed amid the opposition’s uproar in a repeat of Senate proceedings from Tuesday when the original Foreign Investment (Promotion and Protection) Bill, 2022 was approved by the upper house of parliament.
Focus on the bold parts. the bill was deemed against the rights of the people of Balochistan so to eliminate this, the bill is now restricted to Reko Diq only in the case of Balochistan.
This raises two questions:
Why is a bill that is against the rights of the people of Balochistan becoming kosher when it is restricted to Reko Diq only? Or as we discussed in the last post, is the amendment saying that the sovereignty of the Balochistan parliament is fettered only when it comes to Reko Diq?
If the bill is against the rights of the people of Balochistan and fetters the parliament of Balochistan when it comes to Reko Diq, then why continue to allow it to be applicable throughout the rest of the country?
What is happening here is that Federal Government is telegraphing through this amendment that FI Bill 2022 is restricted only to Balochistan’s Reko Diq project. This raises the question that if the bill was specifically for the Reko Diq project, then why does it state that the bill extends throughout Pakistan?
Let’s go back to the Supreme Court's reply to the presidential reference:
Thus, while in its reply the court was at pains to tell us that the bill is not limited to Reko Diq project and thereby not person-specific, today’s amendment in Senate has done exactly that. Made it person specific to Reko Diq.
The next highlight shows that the court thinks this will facilitate and encourage direct investment in similar mining projects.
However, as per the current amendment, those mining projects won’t be in Balochistan as the bill is no longer applicable to Balochistan with the exception of Reko Diq project.
To summarize, when the bill was passed and opinion was sought from the Supreme Court, we were told that the bill is not limited to Reko Diq and will not violate the right of the people of Pakistan by fettering the parliament. But the latest amendment tells us that the bill is limited to Reko Diq only and won’t be applicable to the rest of the province of Balochistan as it will be against the rights of the people of Balochistan. Which begs a question: how can a bill that is against the rights of the people of Balochistan be good for the rights of the people of Pakistan? The question is rhetorical.