President Asif Ali Zardari has at last given a positive indication that the 17th constitutional Amendment will be abolished this month in unanimity. One wishes the original 1973 constitution had been kept intact and enforced in letter and spirit to ensure that the country had a federal, democratic, parliamentary system of government. The bitter truth is that the original framework of that constitution has been amended, or shall we say mutilated so much by both civilian and military rulers that it has lost its identity completely. Bits by bits, blow by blow, it has been hammered to have been actually transformed into a quasi-presidential 'system' instead of a parliamentary one. That is the reason most legislation or law making is being done through executive orders and ordinances. This makes for such a confused state (of constitutional affairs) that one would prefer all the amendments, not matter who made them, to be done away with. -ANWAR ZEESHAN SHEIKH, Jhang, December 1.