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A detailed implementation study will ensure that
future policy is robust and
evidence-based. Factors that will need to be considered include:
• Which body shall prepare and make recommendations for the new
constitution, for example should this be the existing constituent assembly?
What should be the membership of such a body?
• Which body should commission and provide the terms of reference for the
new constituent assembly, for example, should this be all political parties
with the support of the military?
• As a result of the reforms, who should be the chief executive and head of
state, since, under a Democratic Federal Political System, both are one, then
the question is which office shall be dissolved.
• Whether Pakistan should assume a completely new constitution or introduce
a substantial amendment to the existing one?
• What will happen to the existing offices and elected members, will they serve
out their time or be removed immediately?
• Should there be transitional
provisions and if so, what should those
transitional provisions be?
• What is the scope and likelihood of the risk that a ruling party would seek
re-election after the new system has been implemented to legitimise their
mandate?
Although the implementation stage will require further
research and feasibility
studies on the points listed above, however, it may be appropriate for the
implementation study to use a detailed proposal as a consultation benchmark. The
researcher proposes that this benchmark could be as follows.
All parties (ruling and opposition) should agree with the military leadership to form
a constituent assembly whose sole task shall be
to give the country its new
constitution under the Democratic Federal Political System. The timing of this is
crucial and a good time to do this will be at the end of the government’s term when
as a matter of usual practice, a caretaker government is formed for three months.
An exception should be made to extend the tenure of the caretaker government to
nine months so that the constituent assembly can finish its work under an impartial
government. The caretaker government would then introduce the new constitution
which would fully incorporate the Democratic Federal Political System.
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A date should then be decided when all the elections – for the lower house, the
upper house and the president - are announced at the same time to save
unnecessary costs and time delay. Obviously subsequent
elections cannot be
synchronised since the terms will be different: for the lower house two years, for the
upper house three years initially and then six years going forward and for the
president four years. These dates will be set in a manner for the future so that none
of these ever overlap.
Other major changes will include the offices of Chief Ministers, the abolition of the
role of the Prime Minister and the number of upper house members being confined
to two per federating unit (so as to address the issue of disparity of representation).
Further research into the implementation of the reforms discussed in this thesis
will inevitably be required. Such a project will require an in-depth understanding of
the function of different machineries within the government so as to be able to
recommend transition and complete enactment of the new system. The researcher
would like to be in a position to carry this out himself but recognises that others
might be commissioned to do so.
The researcher does not underestimate the challenge presented by his proposals.
Nevertheless, it is his view, and his hope, that with the knowledge presented by this
thesis, and the call to practitioners to take on wider and more creative approaches
to law reform, a more stable, and fairer, Pakistan will be the result.