President Zardari highlights int’l repercussions for not signing off Madrassah Bill

ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari has highlighted potential “international consequences” for not signing off on the Madrassah Registration Bill passed by the parliament, it emerged on Friday, as religiopolitical parties continue to criticise the government for deliberately delaying the process.

Controversy persists in the country related to the Societies Registration (Amendment) Act, 2024 — a new law passed by parliament which relates to the regulatory affairs of madressahs. President Zardari has yet to grant it presidential assent, prompting the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) to criticise ruling coalition parties for using ‘delaying tactics’ regarding the bill.

The bill pertains to the registration of seminaries by the relevant deputy commissioner’s office, as it was before 2019.

President Zardari had returned the bill to the National Assembly with certain objections on October 29, before flying to the United Arab Emirates. The bill was approved by the Senate on Oct 20, along with the 26th amendment. It passed through the National Assembly on Oct 21 and was forwarded to the president on Oct 22.

A document from the president to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said: “Lawmakers should keep in mind the international environment that when a madrassah is registered under a society, which has conflicting interests, [it] would invite international criticism/sanctions for Pakistan.

“If the existing procedure for madrassah registration is obviated, it could be perilous as it may invite Financial Action Task Force, Genera­lised System of Preferences-Plus and other international institutions to review their opinion about Pakistan.”

The president said that the preamble of the Societies Registration Act specified its fields and madrassah education was not reflected in them. The president explained that one of the subjects was fine arts, including dancing, sculpturing, music, painting etc., and thus, including madrassah education in the law would contradict the preamble and could be challengeable in terms of Article 227 of the Constitution and vice versa.

Article 227 stipulates: “All existing laws shall be brought in conformity with the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Holy Quran and Sunnah … and no law shall be made which is repugnant to such injunctions.”

The president further said that the establishment of madrassahs under the act would make societies established under the law vulnerable to “further sectarianism and other divisive tendencies”, saying that the formation of a madrassah under one society would mean that “few people would establish numerous Madrasahs under one society and it would create fiefdoms”.

The reasons also pointed out various other procedural and drafting errors in the act. The bill in question was part of an agreement between JUI-F and the government in support of the 26th Amendment. The Societies Registration (Amendment) Act, 2024 extends the Societies Registration Act, 1860, and includes provisions for the registration of madrassahs under the relevant deputy commissioner office.

The bill specifies that a madrassah with more than one campus needs only one registration, and every madrassah must submit an annual report of its educational activities to the registrar. Additionally, each madrassah must have its accounts audited by an auditor and submit the audit report to the registrar. The bill also states that no madrassah should teach or publish literature that promotes militancy, sectarianism, or religious hatred.

In October 2019, the PTI-led government transferred the registration of seminaries to the education departments.

After more than five years of deliberations involving the government, interior ministry, security agencies, provinces and NGOs, the federal government accepted the demand of religious groups that seminaries be regulated under the education departments, viewing them as educational institutes.

Authorities had initially proposed that seminaries fall under the regulation of the Interior Ministry and provincial home departments. The decision by the PTI-led government in 2019 was welcomed by the joint body of religious seminaries, representing all four mainstream Islamic sects in the country.

However, due to political differences with the PTI government, seminaries affiliated with the JUI-F rejected the idea of placing madrassahs under the education department and opposed incorporating conventional education into religious seminaries.

Under the Societies Act of 1860, religious seminaries were supposed to be registered by the relevant deputy commissioner’s (DC) office. Traditionally, there were five seminary boards — four belonging to the respective mainstream sects: Barelvi, Shia, Deobandi, and Ahle Hadith schools of thought, while the fifth board administered the affairs of seminaries under the control of the Jamaat-i-Islami.

However, after three years of consultations following the 2014 Army Public School Peshawar attack, these five boards agreed with the government that seminaries should be placed under the administrative control of the Federal Education Department.

Subsequently, the Directo­rate General of Religious Edu­ca­tion was established and the government also deci­ded to make rules allowing the establi­s­h­ment of more madressah boa­rds. Since 2019, ten new boards have been established, which seemingly pose a challenge to the monopoly enjoyed by the five traditional seminary boards.

In October this year, the government had agreed to introduce the Societies Registration (Amend­ment) Act, 2024 as it attempted to woo the JUI-F chief for the sake of the 26th Amendment.

This piece of legislation, which would revert control of seminaries from the education department to the DCs, was approved by both houses of parliament. However, it was not signed by President Zardari, who returned the bill to the National Assembly in late October due to “several technical flaws”.

When the JUI-F chief learnt of this development, he threatened to launch protests against the government to force it to accept the bill. But as the ruling allies closed ranks, even the opposition PTI refused to join the JUI-F’s proposed agitation, with Barrister Gohar Ali Khan saying that the 2019 decision to mainstream madressahs was made through “national consensus”.