Speakers at a seminar on Tuesday criticised the giving the power of the judges’ appointment in the hands of judiciary under the 19th Amendment, saying only a comprehensive process, transparency and security of tenure would ensure the freedom of judiciary. However, they praised the passage of 18th Amendment which made the Parliament sovereign but suggested that drug control, environment and education sectors should be kept under the federal control.
They expressed these views at a conference on revisiting the 18th Amendment organised by Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI) in collaboration with Hanns Seidel Foundation (HSF) at the National Library auditorium in Islamabad. The speakers said in some Muslim countries, like Pakistan and Iran, Parliament’s authority was crippled as it could not make laws against religion.
They also cited the eroding rule of law and the shrinking writ of the state as the factors, which diluted the parliamentary sovereignty, adding that it was further weakened if the public distrusted the legislators which involved moral legitimacy of the Parliament. Listing the ever-decreasing participation by the voters as another reason, they said a 40 per cent turnout meant a weaker Parliament while there were some serious performance gaps as well as the foreign policy and defence were still outside the parliamentarians’ scope.
The house committees were also not doing their job as they should have been, they added. Senator SM Zafar said the 18th Amendment had made the prime minister a chief executive in the true sense and reduced the status of the president to a nominal head of state, but whether the PM was exercising his constitutional powers or not was something that needed to be deliberated to know the reasons for the deviation from the constitutional path.
The senior lawyer-cum-politician, who was a member of the committee which framed the amendment, described compulsory education, the right to information and fair trial defined as fundamental rights as the most important contribution to the constitution. He criticised the decision to abolish the Concurrent List and said he had voiced his opposition on the issue. He advocated that the subjects of higher education, standard of drugs and environment must be kept with the federation and pleaded for a new amendment to return these subjects to the centre.
The senator also said that the period set for implementation should be extended to three years as the Parliament failed to address the issue of the difficulties in execution process. Dr Iram Khalid described the law of necessity with reference to judiciary as a helping hand in the takeover of power by the armed forces. She presented a strong critique of the role of judiciary in the affairs of the state and called for reforms in the lower judiciary which was the source of the suffering for the common people.
She said judicial freedom could not be ensured by giving the power of appointment of judges to the Supreme Court. She feared that intolerance and impatience with political institutions and not giving them time to complete their tenure would open the door to adventurers. Renowned economist Dr Ashfaque Hussain while talking about the new NFC Award said 93 percent resources were collected at the federal level with only 7 percent share by the provinces.
He called the NFC Award a blunder as it lacked economic foundation. “It did not take into account the rising expenditure, the war on terror and high interest payments. It was a purely political award. It has sowed the seed of perpetual economic crisis in the country.”