ZIAUL Haq, through an amendment, renamed parliament as Majlis-i-Shura which meant an advisory council and not a legislative organ of the state.

Twenty-eight years have passed since the death of the late military ruler but our lawmakers are still afraid of the ghost of a dead man and are unable to recover the original name of the legislature.

This is not an ordinary matter and shows that our parliamentarians are a bunch of politically illiterate graduates.

On this score the present lot of our elected MNAs and senators should stand disqualified. Those dummy lawmakers who claim sovereignty of parliament but cannot decipher Zia’s purpose behind this amendment should be ashamed of themselves.

The intention of Zia was to turn parliament into a B-team of the executive.His trick has worked to the satisfaction of his disciples.

How can this parliament stand up to its own prime minister and to the belligerent prime minister of India?

Pakistan does not need a bicameral theatre of the absurd if it does not understand the basics of constitutionalism. RIP parliamentary democracy.

A. Malik
Islamabad

Published in Dawn, October 5th, 2016