ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Wednesday decided that the Industrial Relations Act (IRA), which was enacted by parliament in 2012 after the 18th amendment, was a valid piece of legislation.

A three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar also announced that the National Industrial Relations Commission (NIRC) formed under Section 35 of the IRA 2012 had the legal jurisdiction to decide labour disputes relating to the employees (and other workers) of all companies, corporations and organizations operating in more than one province.

With this judgement, the Supreme court disposed of separate appeals lodged against judgements issued by the high courts of Sindh, Islamabad, Peshawar and Lahore. All the appeals filed against the high courts` decisions concerned common questions of law, which have been addressed in the Supreme Court judgement.

Authored by the chief justice, the 54-page verdict held that the Constitution recognised and created a balance between the authority of the federation and the autonomy of the provinces a recognition that was cemented by the 18th Amendment to the Constitution in 2010.

The 18th Amendment had introduced a drastic enhancement in the legislative authority extended to the provinces.

Abolishing the Concurrent List which defined subjects on which both provincial and federal governments could legislate the amendment oversaw the devolution of powers to the provinces.

The removal of the Concurrent List means that there is now a single legislative catalog in the Constitution, which includes subjects that are to be legislated over by parliament alone. And, by Article 142(c) of the Constitution any subject not enumerated in the list will be within the legislative jurisdiction of the provinces.

Entry No. 26 of the Concurrent List mentioned the subjects of `welfare of labour; conditions of labour; provident funds; employer`s liability and workmen`s compensation; health insurance including invalidity pensions -; and oldage pensions`. The following, Entry No.

27 included subjects of `trade unions; industrial and labour disputes.

Prior to the 18th Amendment, labour and trade unions were under the legislative jurisdiction of both the parliament and provincial assemblies, which meant that the labour laws enacted by the federation would be binding in the provinces as well.

When parliament enacted IRA 2012 a year after the 18th Amendment was passed, the act was challenged in the high courts of Lahore, Sindh, Peshawar and Islamabad, on the grounds that the parliament did not have the legislative authority to pass laws regarding labour and trade unions as the subject had been devolved to the provinces. All four high courts had ruled in favour the IRA 2012, reinforcing the authority of the federation over the provinces.

The judgement announced in the Supreme Court on Wednesday held that the parliament and not the provincial assemblies had extra-territorial authority to enact laws to regulate trade unions that were operating across two or more provinces.

Furthermore, trade unions and labour disputes protected under international conventions are addressed in Entries No. 3 and 32 of Part-I of the Federal Legislative List (FL L). The court decided that parliament therefore had legislative jurisdiction of the subject.

Likewise, Entry No. 13 in Part-II of the FLL, gives the federation the authority to enact laws on inter-provincial matters.

And, Entry No. 18 further widens the scope of the previous entry. The federal legislature thus has the authority to enact laws in this regard.

Individuals working in organisations operating in more than one province, will be governed by the federal legislation the IRA 2012. And, individuals working in organisations limited to operations in one province will be under the jurisdiction of the provinces entirely.

IRA 2012, the judgement said, being a procedural law, would be applicable retrospectively with effect from May 1, 2010, when IRO 2008 ceased to exist.

Consequently. the judgement held that Messers Shaheen Airport Services was not a charitable organisation and IRA 2012 was applicable to it as it is operating in more than one province.