Former Prime Minister Imran Khan is making raucous calls and cries in the streets to pressurise the government to call an early election. Mr. Khan marches into Islamabad now and then; he even seeks the intervention of institutions on his behalf to somehow morally oblige the incumbent cabinet to resign and call an early election. However, Mr Khan is not the first of his kind. Parliamentarians have never deemed the Parliament as a forum for serious deliberation, reaching consensus, bridging differences among parties, and representing people’s aspirations. A historical look into parliamentary tales suggests that it has been treated poorly in the past, to be disposed of at the slightest inconvenience. The infamous troika of Ghulam Muhammad, Iskander Mirza, and Ayub khan exploited the petty political differences within Muslim League and other parties dismissing Prime Minister Khawaja Nizam, dissolving the 1st constituent assembly and later on abrogating the 1956 constitution by imposing a martial law regime. The tumultuous 1950s were characterised by Hobbesian power politics in the state of nature at the cost of establishing a solid democratic culture and impregnable parliamentary practices.
Pakistan adopted a parliamentary form of government in 1956 and 1973. In parliamentary democracies, the parliament is considered a sovereign law-making body representing the people. It is the exclusive right of parliament to make and amend the constitution which regulates the administration of any state. In Pakistan, however, the parliament has never evolved as an efficient and productive institution. Political parties in Pakistan revolve around personalities and not ideals. A cursory look at established democracies around the world, especially the conservatives and labours; the republicans and democrats in Britain and America respectively, indicates that political parties ascribe to certain ideals and represent principled opinion on major debates along the political spectrum. However, in Pakistan, dynastic politics dominate party politics and these do not have any principled position on any given policy matter, and their stance conveniently shifts depending on whether they sit on treasury or opposition benches. Individuals dominate the central executive body and parliamentary party which merely acts as a rubber stamp resulting in no serious debate. Conveniently they flout fundamental parliamentary conventions and undermine parliament.
The 2006 Charter of Democracy alluded to the “bipartisan working of the parliament through [a] powerful committee system” which signifies the importance of the committee system in the governance of parliamentary democracy. Committees keep check on ministries, receive the public petition, issue subpoenas, ask for papers or records, and hold public hearings to ensure that public trust is well guarded against any irregularities. However, Pakistan has a dismal record in this matter. The late I. A. Rehman argued that the committee system in Pakistan is still in the initial phase even after 75 years. A report titled, “Parliament’s Role in Pakistan’s Democratic Transition” by Crisis group highlights various instances when PIA, ECP, establishment, higher Judiciary, and even ministries blatantly refused to answer parliamentary committees. In one instance Senator Farhatullah Babar said, “No executive organ had been so contemptuous towards a committee of the house” referring to the defence ministry when they refused public scrutiny of the defence establishment.
Similarly, the establishment and judiciary have also undermined the authority of parliament as the supreme legislative body of the people. Military coups and soft intervention compromise the people’s mandate solely given to elected members. Furthermore, the judiciary has a history of impairing parliamentary authority that goes well beyond the powers of judicial review. From the doctrine of necessity to the 1996 verdict of the supreme court; whereby, it declared that parliament cannot amend the ‘basic structure’ or ‘salient features’ of the constitution not even with a two-thirds majority. Borrowing from similar logic, the Supreme Court rejected the amended appointment procedure of judges in the 18th amendment. The dilemma is that the 1973 constitution does not even clearly outline any salient features and therefore the 1996 verdict remains an insurmountable hindrance to parliamentary sovereignty.
This year in August, Pakistan celebrated its 75th independence year which seems a fairly long journey, yet in retrospect, we have hardly achieved enough in terms of a robust parliamentary democracy. The parliament, a repository of the will of the public, is largely inefficient. Political parties and their parliamentary parties only ensure that the statutory obligations of parliament are met and then all politics, debates, diplomacy, and policy formulations are done behind closed doors. Unfortunately, Pakistani politics did not embrace a strong democratic culture after all these years. However, moving forward, all political parties and stakeholders need to understand that a robust and resilient parliament is the answer to all the political uncertainty surrounding pakistani politices today.
Ammar Firdous
The writer is a graduate of Forman Christian College University, Lahore