ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly today [March 13] passed Article 5 of the Constitution enabling the Parliament to enact law providing for punishment of persons who conspire to abrogate, subvert or attempt to subvert the Constitution by use or show of force, as guilty of high treason. The article also provides that any person aiding or abetting these acts shall likewise be guilty of high treason.

Before the article was passed ... the Opposition was defeated in its attempts ... to specify that abettors should include persons who had worked as Ministers or advisers in Governments which resulted from abrogation of constitutions, and enlarge the article`s scope to cover acts of commission or omission which could be construed to have been intended to bring about the disintegration of Pakistan or secession of any of its territories.

After a long debate on the amendments, during which each side accused each other of having supported ... dictators, Law Minister Abdul Hafeez Pirzada said that the amendments were redundant in view of Article 11 which proposed to lay down that protection against retrospective punishment would not be provided for acts of abrogation or subversion of a constitution since the 23rd day of March, 1956. Special Representative