Constitutions serve various purposes, they legitimize and empower governments. The constitution is also in line with the political ideologies of the government in power. Most constitutions can be amended. How easily it can be amended often depends on how strongly the party in power is supported by the general population. This process is not easy and usually requires a large majority, most liberal democracies with well written constitutions do not see too many changes, for example the American Constitution (bearing in mind that America has changed its views on several issues since it won independence) has only been amended 17 times in almost 300 years.
However, the Pakistani constitution has been amended 21 times in a very short time span. This can be attributed to the fact that the constitution was not written well to begin with and did not align with the ideologies of the people. Various parties have then amended the constitution at different times when they were in power.
Along with this Pakistan has been under military dictatorship a fair amount of times, these dictators have chosen to amend the constitution as they see fit. General Zia during his rule amended the constitution such that the word freely was removed from the article that previously stated,
“Minorities are allowed to practice their religion freely”
Such occurrences have had to be amended later on. The issues may not have been fully resolved still however the constitution does now align with the political ideology of the country.
3 comments:
How would you define the political ideology of the country?
Would it be the ideology of the majority group? If we define the political ideology based on the beliefs of the majority, we would not be able to resolve the issue of the constitution and we might see more ammendments similar to the second ammendment being passed.
The political ideology in Pakistan is greatly dominated by the ruling class. None of them represent the public. They make amendments in the constitution that favour them and give them more power and wealth. Moreover, if you believe that it's the majority of the population then again we are ignoring the presence of minorities in the country that deserve a right to live a good life. Therefore, with such ideology the amendments you have mentioned above will take place.
The U.S. Constitution has been amended 27 times, not 17. But I agree with your broader argument that the U.S. Constitution has been harder to change than Pakistan's constitution. I'm not sure what constituency it actually represents (good questions btw Haris), but it definitely is not quite up to par in a number of respects (see, for example, the recent passing of the 21st amendment).
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