ISLAMABAD: Senator Farhatullah Babar said that from being merely a ‘security driven state’ Pakistan had over the years degenerated into a state under dual control.
The driver was visible but the one operating vital controls like the brake, the accelerator and the clutch was not visible, he said.
Such a vehicle is fated to meet an accident as it is driven along the rough road negotiating tricky social, ethnic and political bends. He said this at a seminar on the role of institutions in the continuity of democratic process organized by SDPI in a local hotel in Islamabad.
He said that some found it is easy to lay the blame on parliament alone but parliament can only make laws but the interpretation of law and its implementation was not its responsibility.
Parliament could and did make law to punish abrogation and subversion of the constitution. If Article 6 was interpreted to permit suspension of the constitution allowing the state take over parliament could not be held responsible. If someone being tried for treason under Article 6 ran away from the court and sheltered in a hospital unlawfully how parliament can be held responsible for it, he asked.
He said parliament made law in March 2013 disallowing resurrection of banned organizations but some banned outfits have actually resurrected and asked who is responsible for this; parliament or someone else?
He said that the Senate has made unanimous recommendations to address the issue of missing persons and it was now for other institutions to take further action. Who is responsible for their inaction, he asked?
Babar said that democracy will be elusive until all institutions agreed to work within the parameters of the constitution and abide by the principle of tracheotomy of powers. He also called for across the board accountability of all strata of society and reversal of tendency to exercise power without responsibility.
Published in Daily Times, August 24th 2017.
