The simple answer to this question is “no”. The reason for this
response is also simple; Until March of this year, Pakistan has never tried
the parliamentary system. Pakistan instead has tried to avoid parliamentary
supremacy through almost every device known to political scientists: the
so called vice regal system, military authoritarianism, presidential
supremacy, and prime ministerial autocracy, with variants on some of
these.
It is best to look at what a “parliamentary system” means and then to
note how Pakistan has avoided its use in its governance. At root a
parliamentary system includes the right of the people to elect in free and
fair elections their representatives to a body that will be able to enact laws
under a constitutional arrangement the enables those representatives to act
in the interests of the people at large as they perceive them. These
representatives are to be elected for a set term after which they must face
the electorate again in a free and fair election that will decide their
retention in or their dismissal from office. The system also presumes that
the representatives will come from roughly equally sized constituencies
(unless the people in devising their constitutional arrangements decide to
use some form of proportional representations, but this decision is also one
that must be taken by a constitution making body properly representing the
People). Whether a “first past the post” system is used, as is the case in
Great Britain, the United States, and all three countries that have emerged
from the British Indian Empire, or a proportional representation system in France) is used, or any variant on either, a regular and
although all indicators show a substantial shift from rural to urban areas.
accurate census is necessary. This, too, Pakistan has avoided since 1981,
However, more than a constitutional and legal framework is needed to
make a parliamentary system work. These requirements can perhaps be
best summed up in three categories: compromise, consultation, and
tolerance. It hardly need be said that the governments that have held office
in Pakistan since its independence have been greatly deficient in these
areas that provide for the smooth and efficient working of a parliamentary
system or, for that matter, a presidential system of government.
By compromise, I mean the ability of the various parties in the
parliament to work together for the good of the country to frame
legislation that will bring the greatest good to the greatest number of the
citizens. There needs to be a recognition that not always will the views of
the ruling party or coalition achieve this and that the ideas of the
opposition often can and should be accommodated, one means to this end
is the assistance that can be given by committees comprised of ruling and
opposition members of parliament that are attached to each ministry.
Compromise can only be reached through consultation. It is often
forgotten that the leader of the opposition in a parliamentary system has
the rank and status of a minister of the government. Meetings between the
prime minister and the leader of the opposition can often avoid the
displays of unparliamentary behaviour that are far too often seen in many
parliaments including Pakistan’s, the shouting matches, walkouts, and
even fighting. These are not only unseemly, but also sharply lower the
confidence the people have in their representatives.
This is tied in with tolerance. In the parliament, as among the
citizens, there will be many variant views on matters concerning politics,
economics, and society. Recognition by citizens and parliament that their
differences are one of the corner stones of a democratic system, whether it
e government by a parliamentary or a presidential system. Many of the
differences in Pakistan relate to the role of Islam in the state. These
Jinnah, in his important address to the Constituent Assembly on August
differences were clearly cited by the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali
11, 1947: “You are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your
mosques, or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan. You
thay belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State”. Earlier, in the same speech, he said: “If
change your past and work together in a spirit that everyone of you, no
matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had
with you in the past, no matter what his colour, caste or creed, is first,
sectioned and last a citizen of this State with equal rights, privileges and
view, the re-introduction of separate electorates by Zia-ul-Haq is a sign of
obligations, there will be no end to the progress you will make”. In my
intolerance. This vitiates the concept of equality of all citizens, the concept
advocated by Jinnah.
Intolerance, of course, is not limited to religion. It has become a
serious and deadly issue within Islam as one sees the sectarian violence
that has become so present in Pakistan. It also is seen in ethnic and
linguistic divisions, the most deadly of which Karachi and Hyderabad. We
return to Jinnah’s August 11, 1947, speech: “We are starting with
this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one
State, the people of England in course of time had to face the realities of
the situation and had to discharge the responsibilities and burdens placed
upon them by the government. Today, you might say with justice that
Roman Catholics and Protestants do not exist; what exists now is that
every man is a citizen, an equal citizen of Great Britain all members of the
Nation. It is inevitable that intolerance in the population at large will be
reflected in the parliament and undermine its authority and credibility.
It goes without saying that the actions of the parliament and,
especially, of its members must be transparent. It and they are in the
position of Caesar’s wife, there should be no evil said of them. There
should be an “ethics committee” by whatever name that is composed of
members of all parties and that has the duty to investigate reports of
improper actions by members. Less than this will inevitably undermine the
standing of parliament among the people.
Finally, a parliamentary system produces a cabinet that is charged
with governing the country. It receives a vote of confidence from the
parliament, usually the lower and directly elected house, that gives it the
authority to govern. On major decisions the agreement of the full cabinet
can be expected, while on less important actions the decision may be made
the minister in charge of the particular department concerned. This is not
to say that the civil and military bureaucracies have no role to play, but
their role should be limited to recommendation and implementation. The cabinet, under the prime minister, must take the lead in decision making Pakistan, the government should heed to statement credited to Clemenceau
it is they alone who are responsible to the electorate. Especially in
that wars
are too important to be left to the generals. The troika of
president, prime minister and military instituted by President Leghari flies
in the face of representative democracy.
It was
implied earlier that Pakistan since its independence (up to
March of this year) has actively avoided a political system under which the
parliament would be supreme in legislation, subject only to the limits of
the constitution as interpreted by the courts, which must be independent of
both the legislature and the executive. It is important to note that the
judiciary has acted against appointments to the benches of persons who
were not qualified to hold judicial appointments according to the
constitution.
PAKISTAN’S RECORD
At the time of independence in 1947, Pakistan was led by a person
who towered over all other in the political world. Jinnah dominated the
political system by holding three posts: governor general, president of the
Constituent Assembly, and president of the Muslim League. He governed,
so long as he was able, under a system that has been described as
Viceregal”. He assumed the powers of viceroy, although the India
Independence Act of 1947 transferred those powers to dominion
authorities in Pakistan and India, meaning the cabinet. Neither
mountbatten nor Rajagopalachari as governor general of India exercised
the almost unlimited powers that Mountbatten had prior to independence.
In his frequently quoted letter of October 27, 1947, to the Maharaja of
jammu and Kashmir, Mountbatten uses the term “my government,”
indicating that he was actin on the advice of the cabinet as is incumbent on
anon governing head of state.
The Constituent Assembly, which would also act as the legislative
body for Pakistan, had been elected indirectly (by the provincial
legislatures using a single transferable vote) prior to the independence of
Pakistan and India when the primary political question was the unity or
division of India and not the legislation that would be needed to govern an
independent state. It had thus become unrepresentative.
The death of Jinnah temporarily passed the locus of power to Prime
Minister Liaquat Ali Khan as the governor general ship was given to a
weakened East Bengali politician, Khawaja Nazimuddin. Liaquat’s assassination in October 1951 restored the earlier dominance of the office
of the governor general when Ghulam Muhammad used his position, not
his earned reputation as had jinnah, to dominate. He dismissed
Nazimuddin in April 1953 although there was no indication that
Nazimuddin had lost the confidence of the Constituent Assembly, a
precursor to the self proclaimed constitutional power assumed by Zia ul
Haq in 1985 and not ended until March 1997.
Ghulam Muhammad appointed Muhammad Ali Gogra, another
relatively weak Bengali, as prime minister, continuing a short lived pattern
that the governor general and the prime minister should be from different
wings of the country. Throughout the years following independence, the
Constituent Assembly had been struggling to frame a constitution for the
country. When Ghulam Muhammad feared that the new constitution would
severely curtail the powers of the governor general, he dismissed the
Constituent Assembly in September 1954. A new “cabinet of talents” was
appointed that included nine member who had not been members of the
dismissed Constituent Assembly. Among these were General Muhammad
Ayub Khan and General Iskandar Mirza. These nine had not been elected,
even indirectly, the dissolution touched off a major court case instituted by
Tamizuddin Khan. in the case, the court, which had taken its time
deciding, ruled that as a new Constituent Assembly had been elected, the
“doctrine of necessity” required that the government must be continued.
The court would hold to this doctrine until the Supreme Court ruled in the
Nawaz Sharif case in May 1993 that the dismissal of the Sharif ministry
was unconstitutional.
In the meantime, the 1954 provincial assembly election in East Bengal
had resulted in a rout of the Muslim League by a United Front of the
Awami League and the Krishak Sramik Party that demanded greater
participation by the East Bengalis who were a majority of the population
of Pakistan. The election results were hardly final when Ghulam
Muhammad dismissed the ministry of Fazlul Haq, which clearly had the
confidence of the legislature, and appointed Iskandar Mirza to rule as
governor, while the legislature was placed in suspension. The new
Constituent Assembly reflected the changed political circumstances in East
Bengal (soon to be renamed East Pakistan).
Ghulam Muhammad retired from office in September 1955 and was
replaced by Mirza. A month earlier the Bogra ministry was replaced by
one led by Chaudhri Muhammad Ali, a career bureaucrat who had been a in the transfer of power to Pakistan, Muhammad Ali’s
government passed a constitution that became effective in March 1956.
a parliamentary system with a few wrinkles, most notably the system
of “parity,” under which the two provinces of East Pakistan and West
Pakistan (which had been formed by a merger of the provinces of the west
wing) would have an equal number of representatives in the parliament,
there by diluting the value of a vote from East Pakistan. This was not
changed until Yahaya Khan in 1970 decreed that a “one person, one-vote”
system would be used.
The 1956 Constitution was never placed into full effect as the national
election scheduled to be held was never held. In October 1958, Mirza,
president under the new constitution, dismissed the parliament (the
Constituent Assembly had continued as a parliament until and election
could be held) and the cabinet and proclaimed martial law. The reasons
forward by Mirza need not be gone into here, but the action was
unconstitutional. Ayub Khan was named chief martial law administrator,
as well as prime minister, and soon realized that he no longer needed
Mirza and sent him packing later the same month and assumed the
presidency.
Ayub had earlier written a memorandum, in 1954, in which he called
of a form of government that would “suit the genius of the people”.
Although many prominent Pakistanis, including Chaudhri Muhammad Ali,
Urged Ayub to restore the parliamentary system, his interpretation of “the
genius of the people” was a form of indirect government, which he termed
“basic democracy”, and a presidential system in which the powers of the
National Assembly world be severely limited. All legislative bodies save
the lowest level would be indirectly elected as would the presidency. The
“parity” between East and West Pakistan would remain. There was no
pretense of the people participating in the framing of the constitution.
Ayub proclaimed the constitution in 1962. With this proclamation, martial
law ended, but there were many restrictions on political activity.
especially on politicians from the pre 1958 period.
By the fall of 1968, there was great dissatisfaction with the Ayub
had put forward Six Points demanding greater autonomy for East Pakistan.
regime in both wings. Earlier, in January 1966, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
over to the speaker of the National Assembly (from East Pakistan) as the
Ayub was forced to resign in March 1969, but instead of turning power
Constitution required, he put General Muhammad Yahya Khan in charge. Yahaya declared martial law. He, however, did carryout his promise of
elections and revoked the “parity” arrangement by basing the seats in a
new Constituent Assembly on the population of the two wings. In
December 1970, for the first time in the country’s history, the people of
Pakistan voted for a national legislative body in direct elections, and these
were generally deemed free and fair.
What followed was not at all what Yahaya had planned for. The
demands of the East Pakistanis went well beyond Yahaya’s Legal
Framework Order. Yahaya and his associates would not meet these nor
would Zulfiqar Ali bhutto whose party won a majority of the seats in the
west wing (West Pakistan having been divided into four Provinces). A
chance for parliamentary democracy was lost as the assembly never met.
What followed, of course, was the breakup of Pakistan and the
independence of Bangladesh.
What followed in residual Pakistan was that a constitution was enacted
in 1973, by a legislative body that had been elected prior to the loss of
East Pakistan and, there fore, in an entirely different set of circumstances.
(Mujibur Rahman in Bangladesh recognized this and held a new election in
1972. of course, that election was rigged to some extent ensuring an over
whelming majority for the Awami League.) The constitution changed the
locus of power from the president to the prime minister. The avoidance of
representative government was best seen in the dismissal of the ministries
in Balochistan and the Northwest Frontier Province although there was no
indication of a loss of confidence by the ministries. To restrict further the
voice of the people, the dominant party in the Frontier, the National
Awami Party, was banned and its leaders jailed. National elections were
delayed and when held in 1977 were rigged by the ruling party touching
off the declaration of martial law on July 5, 1977, by General Muhammad
Zia ul Haq.
This set off a series of events that did not permit the exercise of the
franchise and did not permit the people to express their will. These need
not be recounted here. When a legislative body was elected in 1985, the
key change was that the president gained the power through a
constitutional amendment to dismiss the PM, the cabinet and the
legislature at his whim. Although the power was challenged successfully in
the court once, this power remained until March 1997 and was last used in
November 1996. Such power enabled the president to overrule the expressed will of the people and thereby to negate the concept of
parliamentary democracy.
Finally, the present prime minister, Mian Nawaz Sharif, does not
have that threat hanging over him. For the first time, Pakistan has a
parliamentary system as that term is generally understood. Only a loss of
confidence or a loss in an election can bring his government down
constitutionally. A parliamentary system is in place.
