ISLAMABAD: Ahmed Raza Qasuri, a senior advocate, on Thursday filed an application in the Supreme Court for presidential form of government in the country.
A day ago (Wednesday), the SC Registrar had dismissed constitutional petitions seeking direction for the prime minister to hold referendum whether people for their welfare want Presidential form of government or not?
Qasuri also prayed to the apex court to direct prime minister to hold referendum under Article 48(6) of Constitution in order to determine the will of the people of Pakistan.
He filed petition under Article 184(3) of Constitution saying in presidential system one popular leader at a national level will contest election and the entire country will be a single constituency.
If he is elected, will have wide choice of picking up best brain and talented persons as his cabinet members.
He stated that welfare of the people and the well being of the country demands presidential system. He said; "If at any stage in the national interest the State and the constitution confront each other, naturally the choice of people would be to save the State instead of Constitution."
The petitioner claimed that he was the founding father of Constitution of 1973. He stated that for united Pakistan he suffered very heavily. ZA Bhutto launched 18 attacks on his life and in one attack his late father Nawab Muhammad Ahmed Khan was murdered on 11th November 1974, eventually Bhutto was held responsible for the murder, and was thus, hanged.
He stated that Pakistan inherited parliamentary form of government from British but did not have a rich background of democratic norm and tradition of democracy.
The parliamentary democracy without education is a hypocrisy. Feudal system is yet another cause of failure of parliamentary democracy in Pakistan. Democratic political culture is the backbone of parliamentary form of government.
A country without democratic culture can run any system but not democracy. He said that in nine years, Liaquat Ali Khan, Khawaja Nazimud Din, Muhammad Ali Bogra, II Chundrighar, Chaudhry Muhammad Ali and Sir Feroz Khan Noon were appointed and removed as prime minister. This indicates how fragile is the parliamentary form of government, for Pakistan.
Tahir Aziz Khan, Chairman Hum Awam Pakistan, and Dr Sadiq Ali, a PhD in turbine design from Ulster University, had also filed the petitions for presidential system, which was dismissed on Wednesday.
Aziz stance was that as of March 2020, public debt of Pakistan is estimated to be about Rs42.8 trillion/$256 billion, which is 98.2 percent of its GDP and external debt of Pakistan is around $112 billion. Pakistan owes $5.765 billion to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
No doubt, 25 percent of Pakistan's population lives below the poverty line. At present, the average HDI (Human Development Index) and the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of Pakistan is the lowest as compared to other South Asian countries such as India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bhutan.
This poor condition shows that the parliamentary system of governance in the country has utterly failed in Pakistan. Dr Sadiq adopted almost similar arguments to highlight the failure of the parliamentary form of government in the country, and how it was imperative to cut costs and unify command of public governance.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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