CHAUDHRY Nisar Ali’s recent call for parliamentary debates on the federal ministries’ performance was a significant move for promoting responsible and transparent governance. It would be a great pity if the idea is lost in the heat of humdrum pursuits or because some ministers are getting cold feet.

The interior minister’s decision to tell the National Assembly what his ministry had been doing amounted to discovering a government duty it has rarely taken seriously and which has been spelled out in considerable detail in the Rules of Business, under which the affairs of the federation are regulated and duties assigned to the various ministries and divisions.

Rule 25 of these rules makes it mandatory for each division to prepare for the information of the cabinet a quarterly report on its activities and publish it within two months of the expiry of the relevant quarter.

Many states have been moving from majoritarian democracy to participatory polities.

The rule also makes it mandatory for each division (of the ministry) to prepare at the beginning of each financial year a yearbook as a permanent record for the information of the cabinet and for the information of general public. This yearbook must contain “the details of its activities, achievements and progress during the preceding financial year” and the extent to which the division had realised its targets.

All reports and yearbooks are meant to be made available to the “general public”, and specifically to “academics, scholars and others interested”. An obsession with secrecy persuades the authors of the directive to lay down that the reports shall contain only unclassified information.

The rules also assign the Cabinet Division the responsibility of presenting an annual report on implementation of the principles of policy as required under Article 29(3) of the Constitution. There is little evidence that the rules are being fully observed. This raises two important questions about the enforcement of these guidelines.

First, there should be no difficulty in ensuring that the various divisions/ministries file their reports to the National Assembly and the Senate.

Secondly, questions about the sanction behind the Rules of Business and their contents must be resolved. These rules, required to be framed under Article 99 of the Constitution, used to be made during the colonial period by the viceroy. After independence, this privilege was granted to the governor-general, and later on, to the president. However, democratic opinion strongly favoured a revision of the rules and a pledge to this effect was made in the Charter of Democracy signed by Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.

Under the 18th Amendment, the federal government has been made responsible for making the Rules of Business. This bypasses the democratic demand that these rules be framed by parliament, something especially necessary to prevent the misuse of the rules by a head of government. One need not forget that president Farooq Leghari had created a controversial, supra-constitution body, the National Security Council, simply by amending the Rules of Business.

A more fundamental issue is the need for clarification of the purpose of sharing reports on the performance of the government with lawmakers and the people. The matter is linked to the evolving concept of responsible governance and the age-old movement towards offering citizens a role in accountability processes.

Throughout the age of monarchical rule, the people were assured of the legitimacy of regimes through the prompt proclamation of each succession to the throne so that the new monarch was recognised as the legitimate ruler. In Muslim kingdoms, this was done by including the ruler’s name in the khtuba by prayer leaders at all mosques in the realm. In our subcontinent, the colonial rulers came during the period of parliament’s ascendancy and the official gazette was designed to announce the legal source of the authority’s actions. This system is still in vogue. Even the military rulers were fond of asserting the legitimacy of their orders by referring to their own proclamations.

In the colonial period itself, the citizens began to be consulted on governance through the circulation of legislative bills for eliciting public views. The people were thus offered opportunities for playing a direct role in lawmaking. The principle that came to be accepted was that the government was answerable not only to parliament but also to the people at large. This practice of referring bills to the people has fallen into disuse in Pakistan.

For several decades, democratic states have been moving from majoritarian democracy towards participatory polities. Pakistan, too, has taken significant, though small, steps, namely, the recognition of opposition parties’ role in standing committees and in such matters as formation of caretaker governments and filling of constitutional posts.

In this context, sharing of ministries’ performance reports with members of parliament and the citizens cannot be an end in itself. These exercises will have meaning only if the citizens’ right to debate the government’s record, point out flaws in the establishment’s working, and suggest improvements is sincerely conceded. Unfortunately, we find the state moving in the opposite direction, that is, imposing its will through brute force. For instance:

— despite wide opposition from lawyers retired judges are being appointed to superior courts; — the government is going ahead with privatisation despite its having been rejected by many economic experts and despite its stiff resistance by workers and their trade unions;

— the people’s heritage in Lahore is being threatened and thousands of families are going to be rendered homeless for launching an overhead train project no sane person can defend; and

— the government is stubbornly rejecting stakeholders’ criticism of the proposed cybercrime bill for being an unpardonable attack on the people’s right to freedom of expression.

Thus while the suggestion to throw open to public the records of ministries and divisions can only be welcomed the people will be able to contribute to the accountability process only if the government allows them to challenge its arbitrary and whimsical actions.

Published in Dawn, December 10th, 2015