On 2 February 2026 the Standing Committee on Law and Justice met at 3:00 PM in Committee Room No. 7, Parliament House, Islamabad, under the chairmanship of Ch. Mahmood Bashir Virk, MNA. The meeting opened with a recitation from the Holy Quran and the Committee offered Fateha for the sister of Ms. Sofia Saeed Shah.<\/p>\n
The minutes of the Committee’s previous sitting of 20 August 2025 were confirmed and one agenda item was deferred at the outset. The Committee then took up a series of bills for detailed consideration, ultimately deferring several for further work and consultation.<\/p>\n
During scrutiny of the Alternative Dispute Resolution (Amendment) Bill, 2026 Members stressed that arbitration should not be made compulsory for parties and raised strong objections to any provision that would allow the Government to amend the attached Schedule, warning that such authority could undermine Parliament\u2019s legislative role. The Ministry defended the provision as a lawful delegation of power rather than an abdication of parliamentary authority. The Committee directed the Ministry to place a detailed note addressing Members\u2019 concerns, together with the provincial status of the proposed legislation, before the Committee at its next meeting and deferred further consideration.<\/p>\n
The Code of Civil Procedure (Amendment) Bill, 2024 (Section 54-A), moved by Ms. Sofia Saeed Shah, was examined next. The Ministry noted that an independent Order XXI already regulates execution of decrees and therefore did not support the amendment in its present form. Members acknowledged the mover\u2019s concerns and asked the Ministry to consult with her and prepare a modified draft for the Committee\u2019s review, after which consideration was deferred.<\/p>\n
On the Qanun-e-Shahadat (Amendment) Bill, 2025 moved by Ms. Shazia Marri, the mover had supplied a comparative chart showing existing provisions, proposed amendments and modified language reflecting earlier Committee and Ministry observations. The Ministry expressed in-principle agreement but requested further time for refinement. The Committee accepted that request and deferred the Bill until its next meeting.<\/p>\n
The Public Interest Disclosures (Amendment) Bill, 2025, moved by Dr. Sharmila Sahiba Faruqui Hashaam, was discussed in light of a parallel Government Bill pending in Parliament that addresses similar issues and appears to provide for an independent commission sought by the mover. The Committee noted that the mover may still move amendments on the floor when the matter is brought for passage and recommended that the Ministry provide a comparative chart to the mover and ensure prior intimation when the agenda is placed on the Order of the Day in the Joint Sitting. Given the overlap with pending legislation, the Committee recommended that the Bill need not be further processed and advised that it may not be passed.<\/p>\n
Two Constitution Amendment Bills, one moved by Ms. Naeema Kishwar (Article 24A) and the other by Mr. Muhammad Aslam Ghumman (Articles 51 and 106), were not taken up due to the non-availability of the movers and were deferred to the next meeting. Members in attendance included Ms. Zahra Wadood Fatemi, Ms. Saira Tara, Ms. Mah Jabeen Khan Abbasi, Syed Ali Qasim Gillani, Syed Ibrar Ali Shah, Syed Naveed Qamar, Syed Hafeezuddin, Mr. Hassaan Sabir (joining by Zoom), Ms. Aliya Kamran, Ms. Sofia Saeed Shah and Ms. Shazia Marri, along with the Minister of State for Law and Justice, officers from the Ministry of Law and Justice and Committee staff. The meeting record was prepared by the Committee Draftsman\/Secretary Tahir Farooq.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Standing Committee reviews several legal bills on Feb 2, 2026, defers decisions and asks for revised drafts and provincial status for further consideration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":16637,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}