Not a bad report card
With the assemblies due to be dissolved on March 16, the ongoing session of the National Assembly which began Monday would be its last. Given our checkered political history, this is a huge milestone by itself. Despite its several failures and shortcomings, the parliament managed to pass a number of constitutional amendments of historic import. This underscores the success of the democratic system. That this happened despite the PPP not enjoying even a simple majority in the lower house is a matter of credit not just for the ruling party and its allies but for good measure the opposition as well. The amendments to the much disfigured constitution not fully but quite substantively restore the spirit of the 1973 constitution. For instance, the 18th amendment restored the original federal and parliamentary character of the constitution by taking back from the head of the state the powers that presidents in uniform had arrogated to themselves. These powers had turned the prime minister literally subservient to the president, to the extent that his survival in office depended on the president’s whim and fancy. Now for the first time since Gen. Zia putsch, the prime minister is no longer a figurehead.
By drastically cutting down the concurrent list, the federal units were enabled to regain their autonomy for the first time in the history of this country. And to be able to exercise this autonomy meaningfully, the federal divisible pool was extended quite substantially. The 20th amendment extended the tenure of the members of the Election Commission to five years, evolved a neutral mechanism for the members’ selection and further empowered the EC by authorizing it to nominate the caretaker prime minister in case the political leadership failed to reach a consensus. The Right to Free and Compulsory Education Law made it mandatory for the state to ensure this fundamental right for all children aged between 5 to 16 years. Thus the right of every child for free education was made justiciable. The Parliament also activated a number of its committees. It is through a proper and vibrant functioning of these committees that Parliament can extricate its turf from extra-parliamentary bodies which have traditionally been making decisions over critical national issues. These were the landmarks. The Parliament however failed to assert itself in a number of spheres – particularly on the issues where the establishment has traditionally held sway. It shrank back from resolving the festering issue of the missing persons. It failed to put an end to the bloodshed and the suffering in Balochistan. In the case of Abbotabad fiasco, the parliament eventually accepted the version provided to it by the ISPR. The prime minister first hailed the OBL killing as a victory of anti-terror alliance but soon took a 180 degree turn. The parliament also failed in evolving a genuinely independent accountability body.
While the last five years show that consensus building between different stake holders is easier in a democracy than under a military rule, the parliament’s manifold failures indicate that the political parties have yet to learn a lot to be able to surmount the problems the country faces. Further that such maturity and competence amongst the lawmakers can only be achieved only if the continuity of the system is ensured.
