Constitutional purge
by
Javed Hafiz |
Pakistan is buzzing with political activity. Attorney General Anwar Mansoor Khan has resigned saying that Law Minister Babar Awan was a major hurdle to re-open Swiss cases. Addressing a meeting in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh to mark Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s anniversary, President Zardari said he would not allow “trial of Benazir’s grave”. That means the government will spare no effort to keep the lid on Swiss cases tightly closed. This re-confirms the obvious doubt that there could be quite a few skeletons in the Swiss cupboard. This is not a good stand. Nobody in India had pleaded that the Bofors case be closed after Rajiv Gandhi’s tragic demise.
However, the most important development of this week is adoption of the 18th amendment by the National Assembly by near consensus. And this is a very positive development for a variety of reasons. Political consensus in Pakistan has been rare and that makes the adoption of this 102-clause amendment a big achievement. “Politicians come of age” was the daily Dawn headline and very aptly so. This amendment will restore the 1973 Constitution to its pre-1999 shape, to the extent possible. A 26-member committee, headed by Senator Raza Rabbani, worked for over nine months to prepare this lengthy amendment, with the consent of all political parties. The senator deserves kudos for this feat. After its approval by the upper house, this amendment will transfer a number of presidential powers to the prime minster. These include power to dissolve parliament and appoint service chiefs. Secondly it will give more autonomy to the federating units. Thirdly the concurrent list will be abolished.
In the parliamentary democracies like the UK, India and Australia, prime ministers wield far more powers than the heads of state. As elected heads of the elected and sovereign parliaments, they represent the political will of the majority of electorate expressed through the election victory of their parties. The 1973 constitution, approved by consensus, gave Pakistan a powerful prime minister in Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, perhaps the most controversial, highly charismatic and very interesting leader produced by Pakistan so far. Presidents Zia ul Haq and Perwaiz Musharraf introduced amendments to make their offices more powerful. The 18th amendment will purge the constitution of those distortions.
A federation is composed of provinces with their own legislative assemblies and governments. The United States, India, Pakistan and Canada have federal systems. A federal set-up makes it necessary to divide powers between the centre and provinces or the constituting states. So far we have seen three types of federal constitutions. The US system specifies the powers of the central government in Washington DC and all the rest, which has not been specified, belongs to the states. The Canadian system is just opposite. It specifies the powers of the federating units and leaves the rest to the federal government in Ottawa. India got its federal system through the Act of 1935. It gave a federal list, a provincial list and a concurrent list of powers. Both India and Pakistan have continued with this practice.
However, the 18th amendment proposes to do away with the concurrent list. This will definitely enhance the provincial powers. However, it has to be handled carefully so that the provinces do not drift into different legal and educational systems. Some degree of uniformity in a nation is always desirable. The sizes of federal and provincial cabinets will be cut down. A number of federal and provincial ministers will have to go soon, whether they like it or not. This is a good decision as the cabinets in Pakistan tend to be unwieldy and also result in wastage of resources.
Mineral resources, including oil and gas, which have so far been federal prerogative, will now be jointly owned and equally shared. The president will no longer have the authority to dissolve the parliament on his own. The bar on becoming a prime minister, more than twice, will be removed. This should make Nawaz Sharif happy. Senate will get more powers as the cabinet will be accountable before the upper house as well. The provinces will be able to negotiate foreign loans directly. Jan Mohammad Jamali, Deputy Speaker Senate, told me the other day; “Provinces will now themselves be responsible for their deeds and misdeeds.”
But while purging the constitution of many “dictatorial aberrations”, this government—indeed all political parties are also trying to delete some of the good additions made by the military-led governments as well. For example, the 17th amendment, brought by Musharraf, had made it mandatory for the political parties to conduct their internal elections. For politicians who sing praising democracy every day, democratic norms should be good for their parties as well. But sadly this clause will also be axed and this is a testimony to the hypocrisy of all shades of politicians. More so it is a sad reflection on the current leaders of the political parties.
While the 18th amendment in itself is an achievement, the government should now act fast to tackle real issues like hyper inflation, high unemployment and incessant power outages.
(Javed Hafiz is Pakistan’s former ambassador to the Sultanate). |
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