ISLAMABAD: The Parliament has passed thirty three laws in 2018 on importantissues ranging from rehabilitation of corporate sector, protection ofrights of juvenile, children, transgender, setting up of new universitiesand on matters concerning health and marine insurance.
However, the landmark legislation was the 25th amendment in theconstitution passed just before the expiry of term of the last NationalAssembly.
According to the amendment, federally administered tribal areas were mergedinto Khyber Pakhtunkhwa bringing the tribal areas into mainstream ofpolitical and legal system. According to official record of the Parliament,another achievement was the enactment of law about extension ofjurisdiction of Supreme Court and High Court to former FederallyAdministered Tribal Areas.
The Parliament passed important laws related to education sector includingthe Apprenticeship Act, Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical UniversityAmendment Act, National University of Technology Act, National SkillsUniversity Islamabad Act, COMSATS University Islamabad Act, Institute ofScience and Technology Bahawalpur Act, National Civic Education CommissionAct and Institute for Art and Culture Act. An act to establish IslamabadHealthcare Regulatory Authority was passed to provide a regulatoryframework to ensure provision of quality health care services to residentsof Islamabad by implementing quality standards by the healthcare sector.
The Prevention of Trafficking in Persons Act was passed to prevent andcombat trafficking in persons especially women and children and to promoteand facilitate national and international cooperation in this regard.
The National Civic Education Commission Act was passed to foster civiccompetence and responsibility amongst the citizens, educate people relatingto fundamental rights and obligations of citizens and to highlight theimportance of civic education in inculcating citizenship, knowledge, skillsand values. The Islamabad Capital Territory Child Protection Act was passedto provide for protection and care of children in Islamabad territory fromall forms of physical or mental violence, injury, neglect, maltreatment,exploitation and abuse besides passage of the Juvenile Justice System Actto provide for criminal justice system for juveniles.
The Parliament also passed the Marine Insurance Act for regulation of thebusiness of marine insurance and the Apprenticeship Act to make provisionsfor promoting, developing and regulating systematic apprenticeshipprogrammes in the establishments for securing certain minimum standards ofskill.
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Another important law was the Corporate Rehabilitation Act to provide forrehabilitation and reorganization of distressed corporate entities andtheir business to encourage economic growth and development.
The Transgender Persons (Protection and Rights) Act was passed to providefor protection, relief and rehabilitation of rights of the transgenderpersons and their welfare.
The Apprenticeship Act made provisions for promoting, developing andregulating systematic apprenticeship programmes in the establishments forsecuring certain minimum standards of skill. Another law enacted was theNational Assembly Employees Act in order to regulate the recruitment andthe conditions of service of persons appointed in the National AssemblySecretariat.
The laws for Establishment of the Federal Bank for Cooperatives andRegulation of Cooperative Banking Sector and House Building FinanceCorporation were repealed. The Parliament also amended laws about salaryand allowances of President, Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils, GasInfrastructure Development Cess and Regulation of Generation, Transmissionand Distribution of Electric Power.
The Finance Act, 2018 was passed by the previous National Assembly on May22, while the new government got passed a Supplementary Finance bill inOctober from the present National Assembly, mainly to make changes in ratesof taxes and duties.
