PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Tuesday dismissed talk of any potential legislation regarding a 27th constitutional amendment as \u201cbaseless rumours\u201d. Even though the 26th Amendment is still mired in controversy, the power corridors in Islamabad are abuzz with talk of a possible 27th Constitutional Amendment, which, according to the insiders, will further \u201cfine-tune\u201d the structure and the functioning of the superior judiciary. With the 26th Amendment, the government introduced sweeping changes to the judicial framework. Sources had said certain contentious matters, such as a separate constitutional court, left unresolved in the 26th Amendment, would now be taken up in the new amendment. Speaking to reporters in Hyderabad about the matter, Bilawal addressed the \u201cbaseless rumours\u201d, stating: \u201cSo far, no federal minister, prime minister or party member has approached me regarding any amendments.\u201d He also highlighted that the 26th Amendment was passed after reaching a consensus with compromise from political parties. \u201cPPP wanted constitutional courts, but we compromised,\u201d he said. In a post on X, the PPP quoted him as saying, \u201cThe 26th Constitutional Amendment is an eternal success. Judicial reforms and constitutional courts were a demand of the Charter of Democracy, but we prioritised a constitutional bench over a constitutional court for the sake of consensus.\u201d Though the speculations are rife, there has been no official word regarding the 27th Constitutional Amendment. At present, the proposal to further reform the judiciary is at a very initial stage, but consultations are reportedly underway within the ruling PML-N and some legal circles. Despite these purported consultations, any draft for this proposed bill has yet to see the light of day. On Sunday, PTI senior leader Asad Qaiser said that the party would approach the legal fraternity following \u201cnew drama\u201d surrounding the legislation. \u201cIn this case, we will approach the lawyers\u2019 community regarding this legislation,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cWe will begin by meeting with the Islamabad Bar this month.\u201d In June, amid speculation in legal circles about the government planning to bring in the 27th Amendment, the Islamabad High Court Bar Association endorsed the amendment while calling for broad-based judicial reforms, including the nationwide rotation of judges. NFC award While responding to a question about amending the National Finance Commission (NFC) award, Bilawal said, \u201cAbsolutely. Further changes must come in NFC.\u201d He continued, \u201cThe previous NFC award was given before passing the 18th Amendment, which was before 2010.\u201d He said that various responsibilities of the federal government were handed to the provinces, adding, \u201cBut the NFC is the same as it was prior to the 18th Amendment.\u201d The PPP chairman continued, \u201cThe Constitution says that the NFC award must be regularly given after five years. It is already mentioned that the shares of provincial governments cannot be reduced in new NFC awards.\u201d \u201cAll provinces must be given more resources as per the increased responsibilities after the 18th Amendment.\u201d He added, \u201cWe must immediately call NFC and give new awards. All provinces must be given resources according to the 18th Amendment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Tuesday dismissed talk of any potential legislation regarding a 27th constitutional amendment as \u201cbaseless rumours\u201d. Even though the 26th Amendment…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26565,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news-updates"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}