IT should be a settled — and democratically obvious — fact, but the frequent suggestions to the contrary indicate there is some way to go yet before constitutional and democratic norms are deeply entrenched and become irreversible. Senate chairperson Raza Rabbani was moved on Friday to remind the country that parliament must remain the supreme institution in the land — that there should be no supra-parliamentary National Security Council and that all institutions must follow the edict of parliament. The occasion for Mr Rabbani’s comments was a book launch in Islamabad at which it was suggested that the country needs a powerful NSC over and above parliament. It is precisely such suggestions that make democrats in Pakistan wary of a full-fledged NSC, even though it is clear that national security decision-making needs to be structured and aided by a full-time secretariat and staff. Short of that, national security policymaking will continue to be opaque and ad hoc — with predictable consequences for the country’s security.

Why though is a basic democratic notion as the institutional supremacy of parliament still resisted, actively and philosophically, by some sections of the state apparatus? Part of the reason is surely power — a supra-parliamentary body would be unaccountable to the elected leadership of the country and would be able to implement undemocratic plans and vision for the country’s security. But a part of the answer lies also in the shortcomings of the civilians themselves. Consider the fate of the revamped Cabinet Committee for National Security that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif created two years ago. It was suspected then that the revamping came at the behest of the military leadership — like the recent appointment of a retired general as national security adviser to the prime minister — and therefore was likely to suffer from disinterest by the civilian government. This has proven to be the case, with the secretariat to the CCNS yet to take off and the body itself being moribund. Perhaps not coincidentally, the so-called apex committee meetings and one-on-one meetings between the prime minister and the army chief have virtually replaced all other national security forums.

Where the civilian government has failed — even accepting that the political government has been marginalised in national security matters, and that bureaucratic resistance and civilian disinterest have helped accelerate that process — so too has parliament. There is no intelligence oversight by parliament — and none that is being considered. The Senate Standing Committee on Defence is active, but seemingly mostly to arrange field trips and inviting speakers to make speeches. There is no meaningful contribution of parliament that can be discerned. Strangely, there are voices inside parliament that occasionally demand a joint session of parliament to debate significant national security and foreign policy events as if that can be a substitute for the job of serious and sustained policy input. Yes, parliament must be the supreme institution — but it is parliament itself that must lead the way.

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2015