The eighteenth amendment in the constitution was passed by the parliament last year April 2010 and since then the implementation commission was working overtime to complete the devolution process of ministries to the provinces. Now as the process has been completed the federal government will be in control of only five subjects and they are Finance, Defence, Foreign Affairs, Communications and Revenue.
It was a long-time demand by the provinces for yielding of provincial autonomy to the provinces. Nationalist parties and several main stream political forces also advocated the demand on principals. The concurrent list was to be reviewed every ten years since 1973, the year constitution was drafted. Unfortunately the democratic government of 1977 was toppled by any army Coup and General Zia-ul-Haq usurped the power and kept grabbing it for 11 long years. He regarded constitution as a twelve page document which he could tear up at his will. After that no political set-up was allowed to set in long enough so that the political stability to be able to bring out the changes in the constitution and bring it back to the original position of 1973.
The dictatorial regimes not only played havoc with the constitution but also made sure that an environment is not created to do the corrections in the distorted constitution. The issue of review in the concurrent list was dragged for nearly forty year. During this period the dictators changed the constitution so much that all the powers of the parliament was shifted towards the presidency where a uniformed general was in power in the shape of Zia-ul-Haq and then Musharraf. These two generals ruled the country for 19 years since 1977. The two generals amassed power in their hands and making the parliament irrelevant in decision making process. The parliamentary system envisioned by the founder of the nation, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Quaid-e-Awam Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was turned into presidential form of the government for the dictators.
Pakistan Peoples Party became the single largest party in the National Assembly in February-2008 elections and cobbled a coalition to run the government. Democratic President of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari addressing to the joint session asked the speaker of the national assembly to form an all party constitution review committee of the constitution so that the powers be shifted to the parliament. On the instruction of the president a committee was formed by the speaker to bring a set of amendments in the constitution so that the spirit of parliamentary democracy is revived. The committee under the PPP senator Raza Rabbani worked hard to bring out democratic amendments in the constitution. The devolution of nearly one and a half dozen ministries to the provinces was part of that amendment which is now commonly known as the 18th amendment in the constitution. It was the very first time in the history of Pakistan that a president willingly handed over a significant portion of his powers to the representatives of the people of Pakistan. There are several subjects which have now become provincial issues.