The Pakistan Senate as parliamentary upper house has passed the long-awaited “18th amendment bill”, which is therefore legally in force after the National Assembly had also passed it earlier with 2/3 majority. There will be some major amendments to the current constitution with the objective of restoring the 1973 constitution to its original form after 37 years. Therefore, 3 years after the beginning of a successful struggle of the Lawyers' Movement for an Independent Judiciary and for well-balanced powers within a constitutional framework a lot of credit has to go to the struggle of the Lawyers' Movement and their commitment for the rule of law in Pakistan. There are of course some other important issues in Pakistan that demand urgent attention by the government and the parliament. But it is also true and necessary that the politicians in Islamabad should establish a constitutional framework that has widespread support of the people and their representatives. The reason is obvious: Pakistan will not be able to address its socio-economic problems in any successful way until it provides a framework for resolving those issues. And this framework is foremost a functioning constitutional one.

Constitutions, which are the fundamental framework for governance of states, work well when those fulfilling the duties under them ‘internalize’ the values contained in them. That is not possible in Pakistan presently, because major changes to the 1973 Constitution imposed by the Military rulers Zia u-Haque and General Pervez Musharraf have deformed the constitution and derailed the democratic set-up and the powers between Executive, Legislative and Judiciary. If democracy and rule of law is to work in Pakistan the political leadership must have foremost ownership of the constitution. The country needs the present process of constitutional change to be completed and fully implemented.
A comment by Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Lahore office

A comment by Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Lahore office