KARACHI: Stressing the need for treating all members of society equally, Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarian (PPPP) Vice President Senator Sherry Rehman has said that all citizens must have equality in the eyes of the state.
In her opening keynote addressing on the second day of the London School of Economics’ Pakistan Summit held at the IBA Karachi, the senator highlighted the importance pf understanding the constitution. “For democracy to be meaningful, citizens must put it to use as a constitutional entitlement. We have very little sense of our entitlements. The constitution is not a remote document but something which gives rights.”
She said that the ‘government for the people, by the people’ was no more. “It’s now government with the people.”
Sherry said it was time to ask questions about the laws that govern our country as well as laws from outside. “Mapping the fundamentals is important to the architecture of laws that govern us today,” she said.
“One core value that we must work on is inclusion. Pakistan is not a monolithic society and we have been managing our diversity pretty badly. Minority voices matter,” said the senator.
She highlighted the importance of detecting global trends, saying, “We are living in an era of profound change and social upheaval but we cannot disconnect. Our constitution needs to account for the three major global trends – climate change, terrorism and accelerating digital usage.”
“There is nothing reversible about climate change, terrorism knows no borders and we do not know how to control the Internet which is opening doors we do not know how to close. We need predictability, transparency and accountability in this digital age,” the senator elaborated.
Sherry further said that the 18th Amendment refashioned the entire relationship with the Centre and the way resources were distributed. “It envisioned to strengthen federal units, national institutions and ensure that issues of public importance are resolved democratically at a local level. The RTI (right to information) for instance, played a critical role in making the government less remote.”
The PPPP vice president went on to say that the nature of ‘reform’ was extremely unwieldy, and a fair amount of compromise and political consensus made the 18th Amendment possible. “Then president, Asif Ali Zardari, did not have to reduce the powers of the president, but he did. The PPP government restored the Constitution 1973 and devolved all powers to the provinces to end the sense of deprivation among smaller provinces,” she added.
