By Staff Reporter
PESHAWAR: The government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province said on Friday it would strip out controversial provisions from a law passed just months ago that had granted lawmakers sweeping new privileges, including blanket immunity from arrest, diplomatic passports and gun licenses — a reversal that came after weeks of public criticism.
The decision followed a review ordered earlier in the week by Chief Minister Sohail Afridi, whose office said cabinet members met Friday with the assembly speaker joining by video link to finalize the rollback.
“On the directives of Chief Minister Sohail Afridi, the provincial government has decided to withdraw all controversial provisions incorporated into the KP Provincial Assembly (Powers, Immunities and Privileges) Act, 2026,” Information Minister Shafi Jan said in a video statement posted to social media.
The law, passed by the provincial assembly in April, had granted lawmakers and their spouses official blue passports, arms licenses and immunity from preventive detention. It also required the speaker’s permission before police could arrest a sitting member on criminal charges — provisions that drew sharp criticism from journalists and the public in a province where officials have also been pressing residents to accept austerity measures.
Jan said the disputed clauses would be replaced with language drawn from an earlier 1988 law on the same subject, which the 2026 act had partly repealed. He said parliamentary leaders would be briefed on the changes at a meeting scheduled for Monday.
“The KP Assembly was formed on the basis of the people’s genuine mandate and, therefore, would not make any decision that ran contrary to public aspirations,” Jan said, adding that the government would “listen to and address the concerns of both the journalist community and the general public.”
The reversal also drew a broader response from KP Governor Faisal Karim Kundi, who used the moment to call for a nationwide overhaul of how legislators’ pay and perks are set. In a post on social media platform X, Kundi asked National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq and Senate Chairman Yousaf Raza Gillani to convene the speakers of Pakistan’s four provincial assemblies to negotiate a single, unified law governing lawmakers’ salaries, security, passports and other benefits nationwide.
“No province should legislate extraordinary privileges for itself while expecting the people to embrace austerity,” Kundi wrote, adding that a harmonized national framework was the only way to ensure “fairness, accountability and public confidence.”
Kundi, who assented to the original law on [May 6 — confirm date; assembly passage is dated April elsewhere in the record], said in a separate post that he had raised objections at the time of signing. He said he had urged the province’s assembly finance committee to apply the prime minister’s 14-point austerity plan — including spending cuts, fuel rationing and the elimination of unnecessary privileges — even as he formally approved the bill.
“A government that speaks of financial constraints cannot, in the same breath, legislate greater privileges for those in power,” Kundi said. “My position was clear then, and it remains unchanged today: public money belongs to the people, not to the perks of those who govern them.”
In a formal note explaining his decision to sign the bill despite his reservations, Kundi wrote that he had given his assent while “strongly” recommending that the finance committee implement the austerity measures “while executing the law,” calling it a way to align the province’s legislative practices with the federal government’s economic response to what he described as instability stemming from the U.S.-Iran war.
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