Makeup Post- Assemblies

   Assemblies are held in high regard because they are given the status of being the democratic or public face of the government. Assemblies comprise of lay people who are selected through an electoral process to represent the rights of the people and provide a public forum in which government policies and current affairs can be discussed openly and analysed.

   Assemblies or legislatures are responsible for making the laws. Pakistan has a parliamentary form of government and is a bicameral legislature that consists of the senate and the national assembly. The national assembly or the lower house of the parliament is the country’s foremost and sovereign law making body. The members of the national assembly are elected by the general public and it is their duty to make policies and laws for the smooth running of a democratic state. The national assembly is also supposed to keep a check and balance on the executive and to make sure that the government does not violate the basic rights of citizens and follows the boundaries and limitations set out in the constitution. As far as the Pakistani Senate is concerned, its main purpose was to give equal representation to all the federating units since the membership of the National Assembly was based on the population of each province.

   The role of the Pakistani Senate is to promote national unity and peace and to eliminate the fear of one province dominating the others on the national assembly. However, one of the biggest problem that Pakistan faces today is the domination of Punjab over other provinces. Since Punjab has the highest population and the highest number of seats in the national assembly, the interests of Pakistan as a whole, end up being synonymous to the interests of Punjab. This, in turn, upsets the balance of power and creates rifts among the provinces which makes it difficult to run the state according to the pure spirit of democracy.