You can’t expect others to follow law when you don’t follow it yourself
Democratic values are taking roots in Pakistan as it is evident from the successful completion of a democratic government and by the role of media, judiciary and civil society in the past few years that have consistently kept an eye on issues of transparency and accountability and helped save democratic process from derailing. A number of values vital for survival of democracy in true spirit have started to set in. Transparency and accountability of public representatives is an essential ingredient of western style of democracy that we follow. True to this spirit, one very positive development towards this direction is Election Commission’s stance for adopting new kind of nomination forms chalked out in the light of Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution of Pakistan. The new nomination forms would be helpful in sifting lawmakers from lawbreakers at the very first step of entry into political contest. By questioning integrity of candidates through information about such things as academic qualifications, tax returns, loan default etc, it would indeed be helpful in sensitising all the political parties including those who appear to oppose it, to the significance of transparency in establishing credibility of candidates and parties themselves, and would have long term effects on strengthening the role of lawmakers.
Accountability of lawmakers is considered a cornerstone which serves to provide firm basis to democracy to sustain and survive, because the laws that they make for the public have to be respected by themselves first. As the dictum goes “leaders lead by example”, it is more relevant in the case of democracy. Until and unless people’s representative will set examples of clean records, they would not be able to pursue the people they represent to abide by the laws they make. As we follow paradigm similar to Westminster style of democracy we also need to follow the process of accountability of public representatives. In Britain , there are numerous examples of holding parliamentarians, cabinet members and even the prime minister accountable, sometimes on very small issues which in Pakistan might be seen so little as to easily get away with.
The tradition and practice of accountability has to start with the first step of fielding the right candidates and not merely electables, and sifting at the time of filing of nomination papers is an important step in this direction. You cannot have clean water if the source is not clean, so the Election Commission has taken the first step of cleansing at the source. Political parties have all the reasons to rejoice as they can now field candidates with cleaner background and it will be easier for them to shun the responsibility of many of the loan defaulters and non-tax paying party members whom it was otherwise hard to sift due to party loyalties or other obligations. Now the answer is simple if they don’t fulfill the criteria set by Election Commission, political parties may look for alternative candidates.
Taxation constitutes an essential part of national income which in turn is used for providing services and facilities to the public. Everyone with taxable income is required to pay the taxes. Whereas, unfortunately in Pakistan, recent studies showed that 70 percent of lawmakers did not file their tax returns. Most of the time when our parliamentarians are questioned by media about filing tax returns, a very common reply is that “our taxes are deducted from the salaries at the source”, whereas even for a salaried person filing tax return is mandatory by law, regardless of deductions at the source.
To be an active politician you simply can’t thrive on salaries; you have got to have a substantial source of income. Majority of our politicians come from agricultural or industrialist backgrounds. Those with agricultural income try to get away by saying that agriculture income does not fall in the tax net. I am afraid that’s not the case, most of them give their lands on lease, called ‘theka’, to other people who cultivate the land and pay a fix amount on yearly basis. Now the FBR needs to clarify whether ‘theka’ is categorised as agricultural income or rental income as big landlords usually also rent out equipment like thrashers, tractors, tube wells etc to the cultivators who could not afford to buy them. When a person earns a certain amount of income, the income tax laws require him or her to submit a statement of wealth in which one has to show all the movable and immovable wealth with reference to the previous year to explain the sources and also reasons for gain or loss.
Parliamentarians may be thankful to former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz as during his tenure they were successful in abolishing wealth tax which was mandatory to people having more than one million rupees worth of movable and immovable wealth after excluding one residential property regardless of its cost. It was a tax that targeted all wealthy people who were not paying any income tax because of exemption of agricultural income.
Our politicians usually complain that media grills only the politicians and never asks these questions from civil and military bureaucrats and big media magnates. This is no logic as to why politicians should not be questioned or held accountable. In fact everyone should be held accountable. But again the drive has to come from the leaders, more so from the lawmakers. People elect their representatives to protect their rights, not to set examples of anyone above the law in any respect. Lawmakers can hope to implement laws only if they abide by them.
