Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani on Wednesday criticised lawmakers for allegedly leaking details of the in-camera briefing by Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, saying they had violated the sanctity of the upper house by doing so.
Taking
notice of the details from the session being made public, Rabbani said
Rule 225 prohibits the publicity of an in-camera session.
"If
we keep up with the same attitude, no one will be able to take the
house into confidence," the chairman said, adding that senators should
know that in-camera sessions are not spoken about in the public.
For allegedly breaching the privilege of the Senate, Rabbani forwarded the matter to the House Business Advisory Committee.
Rabbani
tasked the committee, which will include leaders of the house and
opposition in Senate and parliamentary leaders of all political parties,
to investigate the matter and devise a strategy for future in-camera
sessions to prevent similar situations.
Objecting to the
chairman's remarks, Senator Nauman Wazir of the Pakistan
Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) said Director General Inter-Services Public
Relations (ISPR) Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor had held a press conference after
the session.
Rabbani responded by saying that the ISPR chief had spoken generally, without revealing details of the briefing.
Senator
Saud Majeed of the PML-N said media representatives had surrounded
committee members from all sides and they later released news regarding
the in-camera session.
The Senate chairman hit back, saying it was the journalists' job to provide news to the public.
"The oath to not leak the news was taken by members [of the committee], not the media [representatives]," he said.
Rabbani
said he could not even think about controlling the media. He said no
sanctions could be imposed on the media, but they could be imposed on
senators.
Speaking at the in-camera session of the Senate
Committee of the Whole on Tuesday, Chief of the Army Staff Gen Bajwa
had reaffirmed his commitment to democracy and the rule of law and
categorically denied the military’s role in destabilising the civilian
government,.
The
army chief, who originally came to brief the legislators on national
security issues, deliberated on a wide range of topics from politics and
frayed civil-military ties to counterterrorism operations and foreign
policy.
He was accompanied by Inter-Services Intelligence
chief Lt Gen Naveed Mukhtar, Director General of Military Operations
Maj Gen Sahir Shamshad Mirza and Military Intelligence Director General
Maj Gen Asim Munir. The session continued for nearly four-and-a-half
hours.
