Weakening parliament can harm the country

• Institutions must not transgress their constitutional limits

Outgoing Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani and Senator Farhatullah Babar have lamented that the supremacy of Parliament was fast eroding. Their concerns are relevant but what must not be ignored is that Parliament’s supremacy can only be ensured through the performance of its members. In fact politicians themselves are mainly responsible for demeaning the Parliament.

Nawaz Sharif showed scant respect for Parliament by consistently absenting himself from the NA sittings. The practice was followed by his ministers and MNAs. Ignoring calls to settle the Panama gate issue inside the Parliament, Sharif sought SC’s intervention. When the court delivered a judgment against him, he called it a rebuff to Parliament for which he himself hadn’t cared tuppence. The PTI chief went a step further. He not only remained mostly absent from the NA proceedings, he also cursed the institution at a public meeting. The language used by one of his chief supporters at the same gathering about Parliament amounted to heaping insults on the body.

Both the government and opposition talk about principles but ignore these whenever it suits them. The PML-N refused, out of sheer political opportunism, to support the PPP when the latter tried to remove the ‘Sadiq’ and ‘Amin’ provisions from the constitution. On its turn a vengeful PPP insisted on a strict application of the provisions on Nawaz Sharif.

The way some of the major politicians have shunned taxes, purchased villas and costly apartments abroad, meanwhile accusing each other of amassing wealth through illegal means, has not added to Parliament’s image. The ongoing blatant horse trading and a tacit agreement among major parties to keep the middle class out through formidable election expenses has earned the Parliament the unenviable title of “a millionaires club”.

This said, the institutions which continue to infringe upon the parliament’s turf need to be reminded that by weakening the Parliament they are unintentionally igniting social conflict and inviting chaos that could harm the country beyond repair. They need to strengthen the parliament so that they are not held solely responsible for the ills faced by the country and the suffering of its people.