The Government has come under fire from Opposition parties and international community over its decision to introduce the Constitutional Amendment Bill 15, also known as the `Shariat Bill'. Debate on the proposed legislation has shown that even members of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) are opposed to the Bill in its present form.

A key member of the ruling party offered his resignation to Sharif when the Bill was being discussed by the ruling party in its internal meeting in Islamabad.

The Bill has two operative sections. The first section seeks to add Article 2-B to the Constitution. The first clause of the proposed Article declares the Holy Quran and the Sunnah to be the supreme law of Pakistan. The second clause grants the authority to enforce Shariah, to prescribe what is right and to forbid what is wrong, hitherto vesting in Parliament to the federal Government.

The third clause transfers the power to prescribe a code of conduct from Parliament to the federal Government and extends the scope of the code to `state functionaries', who should include judges and statutory office-holders.

The most significant clause is the fifth one, which declares that the new Article shall override ``anything contained in the Constitution, any law or judgment of any court.'' Jurists say that this gives the federal Government the power to enforce a new Constitution in its exclusive discretion.

The second operative section of the Bill simply trivialises the procedure for amending the Constitution. All the Government will have to do is declare an amendment necessary for removal of impediments to its directives regarding what it describes as Islamisation. Such a Bill would not require a two-third majority of the total membership of either House for its passage, nor even a two-third majority of members taking part in voting, nor a majority of the total membership. It will require a simple majority of members taking part in voting.

Abid Hasan Minto, the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan says that as things stand now, the Government cannot introduce the constitutional package since it does not enjoy two-thirds majority in Parliament. While such a majority may be cobbled together in the Lower House: the National Assembly, the passage with a two-thirds majority in the Upper House, the Senate, is almost impossible.

Minto says that the Bill is an attempt to assert executive authority, not only against the judiciary but also against the Parliament.