Democracy in the News – Week 3 – Pakistan
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/pak-parl-passes-prodemocracy-resolution/221411-56.html
This article is brief but very interesting, especially in relation to the Democracy with Adjectives article which we read this week. Essentially, the Pakistani National Assembly has recently passed a bill which is dubbed a ‘pro-democracy’ piece of legislation. Essentially it was in response to the recent scandals which have plagued the Assembly and the seemingly undue influences of other branches of government on the legislative one. The bill was hugely controversial, the entire opposition walked out of the vote in protest, yet it passed with the necessary 2/3 majority.
It seems ironic that a bill called a ‘pro-democracy’ bill can even be proposed in a National Assembly. By black and white definitions, this is entirely redundant as the very existence of a National Assembly presupposes the existence of a democracy. Collier and Levitsky, on the other hand, highlight the fact that democracy can have extremely malleable definitions, depending on a wide variety of analytical categories. From free and fair elections to the rule of law, the necessary requirements for the ‘democracy’ label vary depending on the context in which it is used. It is rare, however, that a government which fancies itself a democracy would acknowledge the fact that it is not a complete democracy and undertake steps to fix this, through democratic channels. The irony in Pakistan is that a pro-democracy piece of legislation was passed in a democratic fashion in order to make the system more democratic! This turn of events makes it obvious that there are varying degrees of democracy. It is not often, however, that a limited democracy implicitly expresses its limited character.
The content of the bill was more symbolic in nature as opposed to legislative. It called for support of the supremacy of parliament as the sole legislative power, the continuation of democratic contestation, and respect for the separation of powers between the traditional three branches of government, executive, legislative and judiciary. “Authority is to be exercised through the people, and the parliament is the repository of the collective wisdom of the people of Pakistan.” This seems like a draft of a constitution, but is merely a re-statement of practices which are already entrenched. Various other political tensions were the cause of opposition to this relatively straightforward bill, not expressly the provisions it made. It was seen as an attack on other branches of government.