Existing parliament have less powers than Majlis-e-Shura of Gen Zia-ul-Haq, former chairman Senate Raza Rabbani lamented while addressing opening session of 1st International Conference on Diversity and Social Inclusion, organised by University of Management and Technology on Monday.
"We talk about reforms in state institutions but don't know which institutions need reforms," Senator Rabbani said.
"There are only three state institutions as per the Constitution, i.e, the executive, the legislature and the judiciary," he said. "Regretfully, the parliament has no control over Defence, foreign policy, internal security and the nuclear assets presently as well as in the past," Raza Rabbani said.
The state eliminated all the resources in the country, which produced leaders of calibre. "Presently, the system is not under the attack but those want to bring change in the system have been under the attack; the media, the students and the lawyers are under the attack," Rabbani said.
He stressed on necessity of dialogue among the institutions. "The institutions should decide how they could perform their responsibilities according to the Constitution," Senator Raza Rabbani maintained.
He urged the parliament to lead the way by initiating the dialogue. "The federation could not sustain a tragedy anymore." "The democracy should sustain even it is a crippled one," he said.
He said that all political parties of the country have become victims of the corporate culture. The political parties which had to provide the leadership have failed to lead the way, he opined.
The government is being run by ordinances in presence of the parliament, he said. No debate ever held over the foreign policy and the national security in the parliament. The Senate has been shut down for three and half months so far, Raza Rabbani said.
The foreign minister instead of giving a statement at the floor of the parliament, announcing details of talks with the Taliban at a press conference in Washington, the veteran parliamentarian said.
The Prime Minister in talks with President Trump called Afghanistan the foremost priority for Pakistan instead of Kashmir, Rabbani said.
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