Another leap in the dark?

WHAT was generally feared has come to pass. On Wednesday, President Pervez Musharraf made it known he felt no need to effect changes in the Constitution through parliament. Instead, with a stroke of the pen, he has made some fundamental changes in the Basic Law, given a constitutional role to the armed forces and armed himself with the power to dissolve the National Assembly by reviving Article 58-2(b). At the same time, he has made himself president — for the next five years. When his term as president begins is not clear, but he will relinquish the post of Chief Executive in favour of the next elected prime minister. While many of the constitutional proposals floated over the last few months have been withdrawn, what must have hurt even some of his most ardent supporters was the utter disregard he showed for basic constitutional and democratic proprieties at Wednesday’s press conference.

The Legal Framework Order, 2002, has now become part of the Constitution “at once”, and the National Assembly to be elected in October will have to accept it as an accomplished fact. If the future parliament tries to reverse any of the amendments, especially the one relating to the National Security Council, “they will have to quit, or I will quit,” said the general. Given the fact that he has armed himself with the power to dissolve the National Assembly, it is obvious who will have to quit in case there is confrontation between the two. In doing so, President Musharraf has outclassed even Ziaul Haq who had made the lifting of martial law conditional on the National Assembly accepting all his “reforms”, including his continuation as president. Musharraf did not feel the need even for that, for the amendments he wanted now stand incorporated into the Constitution by virtue of the powers given him by the Supreme Court. Besides, even though he has said that anyone could challenge the LFO in court, the LFO itself makes it clear that it cannot be challenged in any court of law “on any ground whatsoever.”

To put the question of power into perspective, the Supreme Court’s decision of May 12, 2000, was essentially a legitimizing as well as enabling ruling — authorizing the military set-up to rule for the specific purpose of holding election not later than Oct 11, 2002. It also authorized the regime to amend the Constitution if so required for the purpose of governance. By no stretch of the imagination can this empowerment be so interpreted as a carte blanche for altering basic provisions of the Constitution. The LFO, thus, far exceeds the limits implicit in the Supreme Court’s ruling in that the amendments in question have disfigured the 1973 Constitution almost beyond recognition.

Many of the amendments originally proposed have no doubt been withdrawn: these include the president’s power to appoint “anyone” as prime minister, appointing governors without consulting the prime minister, giving two votes to every senator, reducing the assembly’s term to four years, reservation of seats for technocrats in the national and provincial assemblies, and other proposals relating to the role and composition of the Council of Common Interests, the National Economic Council, the National Finance Commission and so on. But the key proposals have been incorporated in the LFO, and these include the revival of Article 58-2(b) and the insertion of a new clause, 152A, creating the NSC. What is now before us is a radically altered constitutional framework in whose making the people of Pakistan have had no say. The president has become all too powerful — in contrast to General Musharraf’s earlier claims that all he wanted to do was to introduce “checks and balances” in the power equation between the president and the prime minister. The prime minister will now be dependent on presidential goodwill. Even though Article 58-2(b) does not specifically speak of the president having the power to sack the prime minister, the dissolution of the assembly automatically makes the prime minister go. As the recent past shows, this clause was misused by three presidents to get rid of prime ministers for purely political reasons, even though the Constitution authorized the president to take such a drastic step only after it had become clear that “a situation had arisen in which the government of the federation cannot be carried on in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution.” There is no doubt that every future prime minister will be mortally in dread of the sword of 58-2(b) hanging over his head all the time. This is wholly repugnant of the norms of parliamentary democracy.

As for the NSC, the generals have succeeded in extracting a constitutional role for themselves in the country’s governance. They had no right to do so. Pakistan was not created by a general — if we are so keen to emulate Turkey’s example. Pakistan was created by a political genius immersed in the art of law and constitution. His entire struggle for the creation of this country relied fully and exclusively on legal and constitutional methods. His speeches before and after independence give us his vision of Pakistan according to which the country is to be ruled by the people’s representatives and no one else. The creation of the NSC thus goes against the Quaid’s vision of Pakistan and will serve to undermine the growth and consolidation of democratic institutions.

The cumulative effect of the amendments will be yet another constitutional experiment of questionable validity and need — as if the tragedies of the past have been of no consequence to us. The past shows that constitutions and amendments made by generals do not last. Ayub’s 1962 Constitution hardly lasted seven years, while the amendments by Ziaul Haq were undone soon after his disappearance from the scene. What stares Pakistan in the face now is neither constitutional nor political stability but a new experiment in statecraft that is full of hazards.

Downside of autonomy

PATIENTS’ woes after the grant of autonomy to one of Lahore’s biggest public sector health facilities, the Mayo hospital, call into question the effectiveness of the new status. There are complaints about unsatisfactory treatment, shortage of medicines and lack of diagnostic facilities. Even emergency care is not adequate, with patients’ families being asked to buy costly medicines from the market. The shortage of doctors and nurses has added to the people’s difficulties. In the Outpatients Department, doctors check patients in a hurry and prescribe costly medicines to be bought from the market.

Autonomy was meant to improve the administration and financial management of government hospitals so that they could be run properly and efficiently. Urgent attention must, therefore, be paid to re-operating machines lying inoperative and improving drug supply to patients. Steps should be taken to streamline administration and create a conducive environment to enable medical personnel to work as a team. Responsibility and accountability must also be improved in the interest of the financial health of the hospital.