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THE CONSTITUTION OF PAKISTAN, PARTS I & II:Changing the Constitution

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Lesson 9
THE CONSTITUTION OF PAKISTAN, PARTS I & II
Note:  In this handout for students, the text of two short essays originally written in 1999 and published in
book form along with other essays in 2001 are being provided in order to define the contemporary and
contextual framework which immediately preceded the change of government in October 1999.
This handout contains proposals made in 1999 for specific amendments to the Constitution some of which
were actually given effect through the LFO 2002 and the 17th Amendment 2003 but many of which still
remain only in the form of proposals. By reviewing these suggestions, students will hopefully be able to
formulate their own opinions on the advisability of the proposals e.g. the proposal to make voting a
compulsory duty for all adults i.e. all citizens above 18 years of age.
The text below has been published in the book titled: "Storms and Rainbows" by Javed Jabbar published by
Summit Media and Royal Book Company, BG-5, Rex Centre, Zebunnissa Street, Karachi 74400, Tel:
5684244, 5653418, e-mail: royalbook@hotmail.com.
Changing the Constitution
The 1973 Constitution in certain respects is an admirable document.  It accurately reflects our basic
aspirations to be a federal, parliamentary democracy in which the overwhelming majority of the people are
Muslim. Part II, the section on fundamental rights and principles of policy, expresses universal norms and
rights. Yet, even in its original form, the Constitution enabled Prime Ministerial dictatorship. It deprived the
Presidency of even symbolic dignity. On the other extreme, after arbitrary amendments, the Constitution
gave the Presidency a sword of Damocles to hang over elected assemblies. Both extremities also weakened
the judiciary.
Seen over the years in which the Constitution has endured, its flaws have become more apparent with each
amendment made to it. In an age that demands optimal decentralization, devolution and deconcentration of
power, the Constitution has been used to achieve the exact opposite. Central executive authority in 1999 has
become unbridled and rapacious. A Rs. 400 billion scheme (the new housing programme) can be launched
without being processed through the National Economic Council, the constitutionally mandated body under
Article 156.
The physical and verbal attack on the Supreme Court committed by the ruling party in November 1997 was a
perversely appropriate expression of the way in which the executive has subverted the independence and
sanctity of the judiciary in both civilian and martial law regimes.
The Constitution has become the slave of an elected group which, with only 16 per cent of the vote, becomes
a two-third majority in the National Assembly. The country lies helpless in the clutches of an elected coterie
and its un-elected cabal.
With the publication of its founding manifesto in September 1998, the Millat Party proposed 21 significant
Constitutional reforms. The central aim of these proposed reforms is to decentralise power to the local
community level and the provinces; strengthen federalism; introduce proportional representation; ensure
substantially increased participation by women, low-income groups, professional specialists, and minorities in
the legislatures; restore the joint electorate while guaranteeing minimal representation for the minorities;
guarantee the autonomy of electronic media, the election commission and the accountability commission;
secure the independence of the judiciary and give the Senate financial powers.
In this essay, this writer in a personal capacity puts forward suggestions for additional amendments in order
to facilitate public debate. In an era of rapid and complex change we are being governed by a Constitution
that has become outmoded and mutilated. It does not reflect the critically important needs that have
emerged in the past two decades.
To recommend a number of Constitutional amendments and changes in laws and rules is like creating a wish-
list. The question arises: how and when can they be implemented­­and by who? As history shows, time and
circumstance sometimes stimulate swift and entirely unexpected changes.  The purpose of specifying
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amendments is to stress their relevance and urgency.
The mechanisms and conditions by which the
amendments can actually be made is a separate issue.
The numbering of Constitutional amendments is, in microcosm, an illustration of the contradictions to which
the document has been subjected. Z.A. Bhutto's Government (December 20, 1971-July 4, 1977) enacted
seven amendments in less than four years.
General Ziaul Haq's misleadingly named "eighth amendment" actually represents 69 amendments made in
1979, 1980, 1981 and largely in March, 1985. The ninth amendment bill (to make the Qur'aan and Shariah
the supreme law) never went beyond the stage of a private member's bill in the Senate. The twelfth
amendment (1991, to create special courts for three years) lapsed in 1994. The fifteenth amendment (the
Shariah Bill) has not yet been taken up by the Senate. The sixteenth amendment extending the job quota
system for a further four decades was enforced in August 1999.
Thus, depending on how the count is done, the Constitution has already been amended about 81 times in 26
years. As for how many times the Constitution is violated, no count can be kept because violations occur
every day at different locations, most often by governments themselves. Herewith a set of proposals for
further amendments to the Constitution and to related statutes.
Non-partisan caretakers: If we are to avoid deepening the present crisis, the provision for a non-partisan
caretaker government becomes the most immediate priority. In a parliamentary system, the government of
the majority party elected in the previous polls has the constitutional right to continue in office, right up to
the holding of the next elections and transfer of power to the incoming government, as in the case of the
United Kingdom and India. However, every country has its own peculiar dynamics. In the historical absence
from our political field of the norms of restraint and balance, an incumbent government that is also a
competitor in the polls is unacceptable.
The conduct of the Muslim League in the1990 caretaker government and in the Punjab local bodies polls in
May and December 1998, shows conclusively that there is absolutely no chance of holding free and fair
elections under a Muslim League government.
For general purposes as well, in view of our record of partisanship, it is essential that a new Constitutional
amendment be made to appoint a truly neutral caretaker government. The Bangladesh model is worthy of
emulation. Formulated in 1991 to facilitate the transition from the ousted Government of President Ershad
to a new parliamentary system, the Bangladesh model provides for a caretaker government to be headed by
the previous chief justice of the Supreme Court and the appointment of entirely non-political individuals to
cabinet office. The provision has already been successfully applied in two elections.
Compulsory enrolment in voters' lists, compulsory attendance at polling stations and compulsory
voting: Through this provision alone does democracy become a genuinely representative process for all adult
citizens of a country. This measure has been implemented with success in countries as diverse as Greece,
Belgium, Singapore and Australia. Those who do not vote in Singapore, for example, pay a fine of about US$
50. Turnout is about 95 per cent plus.
This measure would increase three-fold the turn-out of voters in the 1997 elections which was as low as 37
per cent, and in which the Muslim League obtained only 16 per cent and acquired a misleadingly bogus
"heavy mandate." To accommodate all voters, polling could be staggered over different days as happens in
several countries. Compulsory voting is also an apt expression of good citizenship because it is the duty of
every citizen to make a practical contribution to the country's political process and progress.
We have a Parliament without meaningful participation. The leadership treats the legislature as an occasional
convenience to be visited only on occasions such as budget day or when a bill has a particular personal or
party interest to it. There is a need to introduce a set of checks and balances that will also serve as indicators
of parliamentary participation and performance.
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Amendments to ensure accountability of the ruling party should include: A weekly "Prime Minister's
Question Hour" to guarantee that the chief executive of the government will be personally present in both
houses of Parliament at least once every week for at least 60 minutes to directly answer questions put to him
alone by the leader of the opposition. As in several Central American and Latin American countries, there
should be prior approval by Parliament of planned overseas visits by the Prime Minister in order to
drastically curtail the large number of ceremonial, non-productive overseas junkets. Majority parties held
captive by leaderships are liable to rubber-stamp anything they are commanded to do. But just the increased
exposure of plans and objectives of overseas visits will help discourage frivolous and wasteful travel.
In most sittings, of Parliament even a ruling party like the present one with a two-third majority has difficulty
in ensuring a quorum. To avoid such ills, an amendment should be made to ensure that if an elected
representative misses three consecutive sittings of a session other than for serious health reasons, he should
be liable for a heavy fine and/or suspension of membership and/or termination of membership. Instead of
termination of membership leading to a by-election in which the same ousted member may be re-elected, a
strong disincentive can be introduced to the effect that, after a fine and termination of the sitting member's
membership, the candidate who secured the second highest votes in the constituency will automatically be
given the seat, in place of the original winner who has not shown interest in regular attendance of the House.
Live uninterrupted, uncensored telecast and broadcast of all the proceedings of both Houses of
Parliament and Provincial legislatures on separate and exclusive radio and TV channels. The people can
monitor the level and quality of participation by their representatives. The volume of public knowledge and
discourse on political and development issues will be expanded.
Publication and broadcast by the media on a monthly/quarterly basis of the attendance and
participation record of all members of Parliament in a manner similar to the way in which the
performance of players in different sports and in different aspects of each sport is tabulated and published on
the sports pages of newspapers.
End the system of counting the weekend holidays of Saturday and Sunday occurring during a session of either
House of Parliament as "working days" in order to increase the number of actual working days of the
legislatures. Currently, a significant percentage of the total working days of Parliament is actually non-working
holidays misleadingly counted as "working days".
A minimal educational level be required for election to Parliament notwithstanding the fact that merely
obtaining a degree is not a guarantee of knowledge or competence but because a degree at least becomes an
additional requirement for election. This would promote the value of educational qualification in the political
sphere.
A six-monthly public notification of the income, assets and liabilities of the members of legislatures along
with similar details of all their family members so as to curb tendencies towards corruption.
A directly elected Senate: An equal number of directly elected senators from all four provinces would
greatly strengthen the principle of federalism and redress the weakness of an indirectly elected forum
representing the federal principle. The relative disadvantage to which the more populous Punjab would be
subjected could, as at present, be rectified by the members of the National Assembly being elected on the
basis of population.
Simultaneous elections: Elections to all legislatures, including the Senate, should be held simultaneously to
end the anomaly by which the timing of elections to one-third of the Senate seats which become vacant every
three years are held with general elections. Simultaneous polls are held in the United States for all federal
legislatures.
Performance audit: Perhaps the most innovative amendment required to the existing Constitution is to
create a mechanism that serves as a 12-monthly "performance audit" of the Federal government and the four
Provincial governments. Traditionally, the passage of the annual budget is supposed to serve as a periodic
test but the budget is a bull-dozer of numbers alone. A new and more precisely focused check and balance
has become vitally necessary. Such an audit should be independent of the majority factor. The present
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Government has used its heavy mandate as a blank cheque issued by the voters to impose unconstitutional
and undemocratic injustices upon the nation. It has created a dangerous precedent that should never be
repeated. If a government fails the proposed audit process twice, it should automatically be subject to
removal from office.
One of the ways to conduct a performance audit of a government could be the adoption of an objectively
formulated, mathematically calculated "Government Performance Index" (GPI) on the lines of the
internationally acknowledged Human Development Index (HDI) and other similar indices.
An interesting new model was created recently by the Mahbub ul Haq Centre for Human Development in
Islamabad with the name of: "Humane Governance Index." (HGI) Details are available in the 1999 report
of the centre on the subject of "The Crisis of Governance."
Viewed through three dimensions of economic, political and civic governance, the HGI uses 17 indicators
ranging from fiscal management to corruption of enforcement of law and order to freedom of expression to
respect for rule of law. Of 58 countries analysed, Pakistan ranks near the bottom at 54. The website of the
Mahbub ul Haq Human Development Centre in Islamabad is: www.un.org.pk/hdc, e-mail address:
kh@hdc.isb.sdnpk.org.
Parallel to a mechanism within the Constitution, an attempt should be made to establish a civil society
mechanism outside Parliament to maintain a rigorous scrutiny of government and Parliament, a scrutiny
that is also independent of the media. The close association of proprietors of certain media, including
newspapers and private radio/TV with the ruling party, distorts the independence and credibility of the media
and reduces the capacity of media to serve as a non-partisan watch-dog over Parliament and government.
A new coalition of forces is needed in Pakistan today, a coming together of sectors, segments and spheres
across conventional divisions. We require a new alignment of cadres, classes and communities to recognize
that the grave perils which face our country demand a matching response of will and vision, of a commitment
to democracy that transcends the stunted Constitution with which we muddle on.  Substantive and
comprehensive amendments have become an inescapable imperative to ensure our survival and development
as a progressive nation State.
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Table of Contents:
  1. THE UNIQUE NATURE OF THE PAKISTANI NATION-STATE
  2. “PAKISTAN: THE FIRST 11 YEARS 1947-1958” PART 1
  3. “PAKISTAN: THE FIRST 11 YEARS 1947-1958”PART-2
  4. ROOTS OF CHAOS: TINY ACTS OR GIANT MIS-STEPS?
  5. “FROM NEW HOPES TO SHATTERED DREAMS: 1958-1971”
  6. “RENEWING PAKISTAN: 1971-2005” PART-I: 1971-1988
  7. RENEWING PAKISTAN: PART II 1971-2005 (1988-2005)
  8. THE CONSTITUTION OF PAKISTAN, PARTS I & II
  9. THE CONSTITUTION OF PAKISTAN, PARTS I & II:Changing the Constitution
  10. THE POLITICAL SYSTEM OF PAKISTAN:Senate Polls: Secrecy Breeds Distortion
  11. THE ELECTION COMMISSION OF PAKISTAN:A new role for the Election Commission
  12. “POLITICAL GROUPINGS AND ALLIANCES: ISSUES AND PERSPECTIVES”
  13. THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS AND INTEREST GROUPS
  14. “THE POPULATION, EDUCATION AND ECONOMIC DIMENSIONS OF PAKISTAN”
  15. THE NATIONAL ENVIRONMENT POLICY 2005:Environment and Housing
  16. NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY 2005:The National Policy, Sectoral Guidelines
  17. THE CHILDREN OF PAKISTAN:Law Reforms, National Plan of Action
  18. “THE HEALTH SECTOR OF PAKISTAN”
  19. NGOS AND DEVELOPMENT
  20. “THE INFORMATION SECTOR OF PAKISTAN”
  21. MEDIA AS ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER:Directions of National Security
  22. ONE GLOBE: MANY WORLDS
  23. “THE UNITED NATIONS” PART-1
  24. “THE UNITED NATIONS” PART-2
  25. “MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS (MDGS)”:Excerpt
  26. “THE GLOBALIZATION: THREATS AND RESPONSES – PART-1”:The Services of Nature
  27. THE GLOBALIZATION: THREATS AND RESPONSES – PART-2”
  28. “WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION (WTO)”
  29. “THE EUROPEAN UNION”:The social dimension, Employment Policy
  30. “REGIONAL PACTS”:North America’s Second Decade, Mind the gap
  31. “OIC: ORGANIZATION OF THE ISLAMIC CONFERENCE”
  32. “FROM SOUTH ASIA TO SAARC”:Update
  33. “THE PAKISTAN-INDIA RELATIONSHIP”
  34. “DIMENSIONS OF TERRORISM”
  35. FROM VIOLENT CONFLICT TO PEACEFUL CO-EXISTENCE
  36. “OIL AND BEYOND”
  37. “PAKISTAN’S FOREIGN POLICY”
  38. “EMERGING TRENDS IN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS”
  39. “GLOBALIZATION OF MEDIA”
  40. “GLOBALIZATION AND INDIGENIZATION OF MEDIA”
  41. “BALANCING PUBLIC INTERESTS AND COMMERCIAL INTERESTS”
  42. “CITIZENS’ MEDIA AND CITIZENS’ MEDIA DIALOGUE”
  43. “CITIZENS’ MEDIA RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES”Exclusive Membership
  44. “CITIZENS’ PARTICIPATION IN PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING”:Forming a Group
  45. “MEDIA IN THE 21ST CENTURY”