Session 9: Rights of assemblies in Pakistan

One of the most interesting things that I founded in Heywood’s reading about assemblies was indeed the role of assemblies. Living in a country like Pakistan where politics plays an important part in a person’s life and is usually the topic for discussion on a dinner table or elders gathering, I was always bothered about the fact that what the basic tasks were that needs to be performed by these constituent assemblies. I had that curiosity about why are people always so desperate to win elections and be a part of the assembly.

My perception regarding these assemblies was that they are responsible for taking decisions and execute them; only after the reading I realized that these assemblies are also accountable for legislation, representation, scrutiny, political recruitment and legitimacy. Then I compared these assigned tasks with the tasks being performed by the Pakistani assemblies, and came to the conclusion that whether these assemblies were completing all their designated tasks or was there some other external locus of control that was controlling all these things.

 In my opinion there is no decision making going on in the assemblies and most of the decisions that are being taken are because of some sort of pressure from an outside source. It won’t be wrong to say that there is an “invisible hand” that is operating or at least influencing the workings of the assemblies of Pakistan. It might be the fact that because of these influences, our so called democratic and free assemblies are hardly able to complete their tenure. This can clearly be seen from the fact that in a history of more than 65 years, only one democratic assembly has been able to complete its tenure of five years, whereas all other have either been dissolved or taken over by military regimes.

To be very honest, an amateur like me cannot answer the question of who is influencing the House of Commons in Pakistan, but I do know that if decisions are made on personal biases and prejudices, the sovereignty of Pakistan will definitely be jeopardized.