Revival of executive magistracy?

Taking a backward step to the old days, the government of 'New Pakistan' is considering restoring the erstwhile executive magistracy system to control food inflation. Speaking at a presser on Tuesday flanked by the Prime Minister's Adviser on Finance (who has earned much public ridicule by grossly understating the price of tomatoes) and FBR Chairman, Economic Affairs Minister Hammad Azhar said "the present double-digit food inflation is because of seasonal supply shocks, disruption of trade with India, and failure of the administration in the provinces," telling reporters that "we are in talks with the federating units to revive the old system to check hoarding and price hike." Although there are other drivers of food inflation, absence of a proper price control mechanism is making a bad situation worse.

Handing back judicial powers to the executive may be an easy way of checking unbridled rise in food prices but it militates against the constitutional scheme of separation of powers and also comes across as an insidious plan to undermine the local governments system. Perhaps Azhar forgets and needs to be reminded that executive magistracy was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and had to be abandoned under the court's directive. Regrettably, democratically-elected provincial governments have remained averse to the idea of devolution of power to the grass roots level. The system introduced in 2001 by the Musharraf government was an important step toward people's empowerment, with district administration officers acting only as coordinators between the provincial and district governments. Unfortunately, however, it did not go very far. The new governments dissolved these bodies protected under Articles 32 and 140-A of the Constitution, and kept postponing fresh elections on one pretext or another. When on the repeated directives of the Supreme Court, elections were finally held, the provinces enacted laws drastically reducing the local governments' ability to undertake any meaningful administrative or development work. Both Sindh and Punjab also brought back the commissionerate system. After the PTI government came to power in Punjab promising fully empowered local governments, holding several meetings presided by Prime Minister Imran Khan to formulate a new law, that raised the hope of betterment. But in that case, too, the high-sounding claims ended in a whimper. The existing elected local bodies were dismissed and replaced with commissionerates till fresh elections at a distant future date.

That being the background, the provinces are likely to happily welcome the federal government's suggestion for the revival of the magistracy system. But the argument for it, especially coming from a government that claims to be making a 'New Pakistan', is difficult to accept and declared unconstitutional by the highest court in the land. If the intention is only to keep a check on food prices, it would be wise to learn from the experiences of other functioning democracies. The issue surely can be best addressed by local governments rather than deputy commissioners and assistant commissioners acting as district and sub-divisional magistrates.