ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has been urged to direct the prime minister to hold a referendum whether or not people of Pakistan want a presidential form of government.

Tahir Aziz Khan, chairman Hum Awam Pakistan, filed a petition under Article 184(3) of the Constitution and made the president, the prime minister, the chief secretaries of all the four provinces and Gilgit-Baltistan, and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) as respondents.

He said the word ‘referendum’ has been mentioned in Article 48(6) of Constitution.

The petitioner’s stance is 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 the external debt of Pakistan is around $112 billion.

Pakistan owes $5.765 billion to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

This poor condition shows that the parliamentary system of governance in the country has utterly failed in Pakistan.

He contended due to the present system there is little legislation in the assemblies, and the meetings of legislatures often fail due to lack of quorum.

The monitoring role of the opposition is therefore often compromised.

He stated that Turkey made a lot of progress by replacing Parliamentary form of government with the presidential form.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020