Pakistan Constitutional History is a Continuous Process of Amendments Aimed at Power Grab

Only 15 years ago, we were a military governed state and the men on horseback decided that they had the authority to contaminate the only document that still bears the signature of all the major political opinions and ideological leaders that were present in the 1973 Constituent Assembly. The military government in 2002 imposed a mixed system of parliamentary democracy with a very strong president, who insisted on continuing to wear the uniform while in office.

Our constitutional history is filled with repeated attempts by military adventurers to introduce a presidential form of government, followed by repeated attempts by political parties’ governments to bring parliamentary democracy back to life. The irony is that parliamentary democracy and its constitutional arrangement never matched the realities of the power structure of our society.

In the post Zia period, we had a troika, consisting of a powerful President, an even more powerful Army Chief and a Prime Minister whose authority and office was overshadowed by two former offices. In the post-Musharraf Period, we had a very powerful and active COAS presiding over a military machine that controls the coercive machinery of the state, manages the foreign policy as diplomat-in-Chief, at least till the time of General Qamar Javed Bajwa, and who is domestically so powerful that just by withdrawing support for an elected government, he can force regime change in Islamabad.

Neither civil governments nor the military governments in our history have desisted from changing the shape of our constitution whimsically.

Under elder Bhutto our parliament carried out seven amendments in the constitution. Only other prime minister with the same number of constitutional amendments to his credit is Nawaz Sharif. Under Yousaf Raza Gilani parliament carried out three amendments. Under Junejo it carried out two amendments. Shaukat Aziz and Shehbaz Sharif are credited with one each, whereas Shahid Khaqan Abbasi is credited with  two constitutional amendments.

Some of these amendments were carried out to distort the parliamentary character of the constitution, while others were aimed at curbing the independence of judiciary or creating a parallel judiciary. Yousaf Raza Gilani is the only prime minister in the country’s history under whom parliament fully restored the parliamentary democracy in the country when it repealed the amendments introduced by the military government of General Musharraf.

More than 70 years have passed since we started our journey as an independent state and in this period our ruling elite have failed to reach a consensus over the rules of the game—rules under which they will jockey for power. We have failed to evolve a consensus over the use of force or use of coercive apparatus of the state against those who break the rules primarily because we don’t have a consensus on what those rules ought to be. We journeyed from being a parliamentary democracy to a presidential form of government and sojourned at a system which was a hybrid form of the two. The question still remains unsettled with voices advocating presidential form over parliamentary, since in their view the latter is more suitable for Pakistan, where the need to control the destabilizing forces requires dictatorial power. The Army’s role is still an unsettled one as army top brass’s manipulations are on the rise. Political class shows little understanding and commitment to the system—in our case parliamentary form of government—to which they swear loyalty. Federal structure of the state hardly stands on strong footings.

Every ruler-whether civil or military–continued to de-shape the constitution according to his own requirements or for his personal aggrandizement. Only ruler who voluntarily conceded his constitutional powers to the parliament was President Asif Ali Zardari who championed the cause of restoring the system to its original federal parliamentary form–a form which was distorted by successive military governments.

The last two military governments of General Zia and General Musharraf strengthened the office of President as opposed to the parliamentary form of democracy, which was provided for under the original 1973 constitution. Each other after the collapse of military governments, the elected civilian governments that followed restored the parliament system of government. First time it was the then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who spearheaded the restoration of parliamentary democracy in the Post-Zia period. Second time it was Yousaf Raza Gilani whose government restored the Pakistani constitution to its original parliamentary form.
Pakistan governments have been quite fond of creating a parallel judiciary in addition to the three tier judicial system that is provided in the original constitution. Many amendments were aimed at creating a parallel judiciary.

Following is the complete list of constitutional amendments.

# Amendments Proposal date Enactment date Full text
1st Redefined the boundaries of Pakistan and removed references to East Pakistan. 4 May 1974 Full Text
2nd Defined a Muslim and declared the status of Ahmadis as minority and ‘non-Muslim’. 17 September 1974 Full Text
3rd Extended the period of preventive detention from one month to three months 18 February 1975 Full Text
4th Decreed additional seats for minorities, it also deprived courts of the power to grant bail to any person detained under any preventive detention. 21 November 1975 Full Text
5th Widened the scope of restriction on the High Courts. 5 September 1976 Full Text
6th Provided that Chief Justice of Supreme Court will be retired at the age of 65 and High Court judges at age 62. 22 December 1976 Full Text
7th Enables the prime minister to obtain a vote of confidence of the people of Pakistan. 16 May 1977 Full Text
8th Changed Pakistan’s government from a Parliamentary system to a Semi-presidential system by giving the President a number of additional powers. 11 November 1985 Full Text
9th Bill to impose Shariah law as the supreme law of land. The bill was passed by Senate but could never be passed by National Assembly owing to the latter’s dissolution. 1985 Not passed Full Text
10th Fixed the interval period between sessions of the National Assembly to not exceed 130 days. 25 March 1987 Full Text
11th Revision of the reserved seats for women in the National and the provincial assemblies. The bill was withdrawn in 1992. 1989 passed Full Text
12th Created Speedy Trial Court for 3 years. 1991 Full Text
13th Stripped the President of Pakistan of his reserve power to dissolve the National Assembly of Pakistan, and thereby triggering new elections and dismissing the Prime Minister. 1997 Full Text
14th Allowed members of parliament to be dismissed if they defect. 3 July 1997 Full Text
15th Bill to impose Shariah law as supreme law of land. Was never passed. 1998 Not passed Full Text
16th Increased the term appointed for quota system as per 1973 Constitution from 20 to 40 years. 1999 Full Text
17th Made changes dealing with the office of the President and the reversal of the effects of the Thirteenth Amendment. 2003 Full Text
18th Removed the power of President of Pakistan to dissolve the Parliament unilaterally. Gave more authority to the provinces. Province of North-West Frontier Province(NWFP) was renamed as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa(KPK) 8 April 2010 Full Text
19th Provided for the appointment of the Judges of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and made amendments in the number of members of the parliamentary committee for the appointment of Chief Electoral Officers at Election Commission of Pakistan. 22 December 2010 Full Text
20th For Free and Fair Elections.[1] 14 February 2012 Full Text
21st In the aftermath of APS Peshawar Attack, Military Courts were established for speedy trials of terrorists and their sponsors. 7 January 2015 Full Text
22nd ECP powers deputed to Chief Election Commissioner [2] 8 June 2016 Full Text
23rd The 23rd Amendment was passed to re-establish the military courts for further two years till 6 January 2019.[3] In 2015, National Assembly passed the 21st Amendment and created the military courts for the period of 2 years. The period of two years was expired on 6 January 2017 hence this 23rd Amendment was passed to re-establish the military courts for further two years till 6 January 2019. At the end of this period all the amendments will be expired/removed automatically. 7 January 2017 Full Text
24th Reallocation of National Assembly seats among federating units and allowing election authorities to update boundaries of constituencies based on provisional results of 2017 Census of Pakistan. 22 December 2017 Full Text
25th Merges Federally Administered Tribal Areas with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. 31 May 2018 Full Text
26th It is a set of constitutional amendments — containing 27 clauses — including the fixture of the chief justice’s term.[4] 20 October 2024 21 October 2024
27th The amendment addresses a set of issues, i.e., judicial structure (including the formation of the Constitutional Court), federal-provincial relations, military command arrangements (particularly the revision of Article 243), and top appointments in the armed forces.