ISLAMABAD: Chairman Senate Mian Raza Rabbani said on Monday that Pakistan was in a process to develop a culture of political endurance that came in the form of 18th Amendment.
He was speaking at the Post Election Seminar, jointly organized by Senate of Pakistan and Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) here at Pakistan Institute of Parliamentary Studies (PIPS).
He said since passage of the 18th amendment of the constitution, no steps had been taken to fully implement it and underlined the need to provide autonomy to provinces.
He said there was a particular mindset which wasn't willing to transfer powers to the provinces from the centre. "There are major roadblocks which are not letting provinces to get the powers. But, the good thing is that with the passage of 18th Amendment we have taken a step and are moving forward," he said.
Raza Rabbani said that any attempt to rollback the 18th amendment would have a major setback for the system as the small provinces would never accept such a move. "We have to move forward. We have to devolve powers to provinces. The sooner we realize that the better it will be for a stronger Pakistan," he said.
He explained that under the 18th Amendment, a number of subjects from the concurrent list had been devolved to provinces to ensure autonomy for federating units. He said that in accordance with the Article 154 of the Constitution, meeting of Council for Common Interests should be held within 90 days, but since 1973 it only met for eleven times till 2010 adding that we are unable to surmount the centralist mindset.
He said the military takeovers in the country resulted in concentrating powers to Islamabad as they were uncomfortable with Parliamentary form of government. "Anyone who spoke about provincial autonomy was dubbed as a traitor at that time. That was the basic mindset that continued and even continues today," he remarked.
Chairman Senate said that it was unfortunate that there had been military takeovers in the country. He said that the democratic system in the country was derailed at different times, abrogating the constitution. He said that 1973 Constitution established Parliamentary democracy in the country, but the non- democratic regimes which came into power at different times centralized all authority, changing the structure of the Constitution from a Parliamentary form to a Presidential one.
He pointed out that 1973 Constitution was the result of a long struggle of people of Pakistan for democracy adding, "That document (1973 Constitution) was a consensus document in which all political parties took part." He said there had also been derailment of democratic governments after the 1973 Constitution by dictators however, the Constitution was not abrogated but held in abeyance.
"They held the Constitution in abeyance but could not change its basic structure. The 1973 Constitution is the basis of democratic and parliamentary system of government in Pakistan," he added.
Comments
Comments are closed.