Centre for Peace, Security and Developmental Studies (CPSD) Karachi based public policy think tank organised a roundtable discussion on "18th Amendments: Pitfall and Opportunities' in Karachi. Speakers from academia, political parties, civil society members, and law experts deliberated on multiple dimensions of the subject.
Umer Khan Executive Director CPSD presented welcome remarks. Former Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany, former Chief Justice Sindh High Court and Dean Law Dadabhoy Institute of Higher Education talked about empowering provinces through provincial list of legislation. He maintained that abolition of the concurrent legislative list can create ambiguities so there should be clarity about legislative items available to the provinces.
Former Justice M. Shaiq Usmani, Former Justice Sindh High Court shared his thoughts on presidential and parliamentary system of governments. He highlighted that the provinces are now in a position to govern themselves and this devolution of power is in the interest of masses.
However, any misuse of devolved power can be harmful for the country. He further said that the misuse of power can be prevented with a built in system of checks and balances which this can never be effectively put in place in a parliamentary form of government.
Therefore, he proposed, that for a federation to function it is necessary that there should be a Presidential system of Government. Renowned journalist Mazhar Abbas was of the view that in order to empower local government it is necessary to change the mindset of political forces and democracy needs to be implemented in its true sense.
Dr. Kaiser Bengali maintained that 18th amendment has strengthened provincial autonomy and the peaceful conduct of last local government elections in Balochistan testifies this autonomy. Taimur Malik, reviewed article 160 and pointed out that clause 3 A does not clarify whether the restriction on reduction of share is for the collective share of the provinces or the individual share.
Dr Muhammad Moiz Khan, Assistant Professor, University of Karachi, highlighted the overlapping jurisdiction of provinces and federation in education sector. He was of the view that 18th amendments has failed to reconcile the financial and logistic matters of higher education institutions.-PR
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