Making the Constitution Workable
Within hours of the unanimous approval of the 1973 Constitution by the elected representatives of all the Federating units of Pakistan, “fundamental rights”, the very soul of any Constitution, was held in abeyance. If then PM Bhutto had a legitimate reason for the immediate suspension, then the Constitution was unworkable and in need of suitable amendments to make it fit for governance of the country on an equitable basis. If on the other hand, the suspension was simply to gag the opposition to Bhutto and his PPP government, then it amounted to a civilian coup de d’etat which was violative of the Constitution. Civilian or military, it does not matter, suspending fundamental rights goes against the tenets of any Constitution. Always the wily politician, Bhutto got away with something that may have been legally correct but was morally wrong. For 15 years these rights remained suspended till restored by late PM Mohammad Ali Khan Junejo, in the meantime many amendments substantially changed the character of the original document, there always being “the doctrine of necessity”. The 1973 Constitution in its purest form certainly cemented the Federation in the aftermath of 1971 but was not geared for smooth governance, suitable amendments were required. Without going into the history of the amendments made and reasons thereof, some were done in good faith in keeping with the genius of democratic environment prevailing in the country, in many cases the speed and the manner of their passing through Parliament symbolized the bad faith manifest in them.
Contrary to public opinion, the 1973 Constitution has not been overhauled and defaced as some have suggested, it has simply been made more workable. Having involved a set of proposed amendments duly crafted by the National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB), the military regime assessed the depth of the opposition and the motivation of the protest, and to their credit, the government has withdrawn almost two-thirds of the proposals. Therefore, what Gen Pervez Musharraf unveiled last Wednesday was that the National Security Council (NSC) was the bare necessity required to ensure that military interaction would cease in future in direct form and that a mechanism to gauge the issues and debate it in higher council (where the Armed Forces would have some say but not VETO powers) would be put in place. All the other amendments were under the Legal Framework Order (LFO) 2002 and were necessary to ensure that democracy would have some future on its return to Pakistan and would not be subject to intrigue and conspiracy as in the past, or repeated military intervention thereof.
