Local govts shouldn’t be mere show pieces: CJ

Top court asks federal, provincial govts about steps taken for LG empowerment

ISLAMABAD:

The Supreme Court has said that the recently elected local governments should not serve as ‘mere show pieces’. The court has asked federal and provincial governments about the steps they have taken to empower the local governments.

A three-member bench, headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, also ordered the LG secretaries of all four provinces, Islamabad Capital Territory and the administrator of cantonment boards to tell the apex court if LGs were functioning in their respective areas.

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The bench passed the directions while hearing a petition filed by Advocate Raja Rub Nawab who claimed that the recently elected LGs had not been given the powers they should have under Article 140A of the Constitution. “The LG system looks ineffective in the country,” he further said in his petition.

The petitioner requested the top court to summon representatives of all the provinces, ICT and cantonment areas and ask them about the steps they have taken to empower the LGs.

Deputy Attorney General Sajid Ilyas Bhatti told the bench that the recently elected LG representatives have already been sworn in. “They have only taken oath or they have been given powers to run the system?” shot back one of the judges.

Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed observed that powers have not been devolved to the LG representatives. “It is the duty of all governments to satisfy the court on delegation of powers to the local governments,” he said.





Justice Khilji Arif Hussain remarked powers should be devolved to the grass-roots level.

Chief Justice Jamali said no one had asked the federal and provincial lawmakers to make laws for local governments, but they had passed legislation on their own. “Local governments should not be mere show-pieces,” he said.

Legal experts say that the provincial governments have not given meaningful political, administrative and financial powers to LG representatives. They say that the recently elected LG representatives will have to approach the superior courts to secure their legal powers.

“Though the provinces gave in to the persistence of the Supreme Court and organised LG polls, but they have given a toothless system,” said senior lawyer Chaudhry Faisal Hussain. Citing the example of Punjab’s LG law, he said the chief minister has the power to dismiss a district council chairman.



Interestingly, the top court has already declared in the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) case that it would strike down any legislation by a provincial government to make LGs powerless.

“If a provincial government oversteps its legislative or executive authority to make the local governments powerless, then such exercise will fall foul of Article 140-A of the Constitution and an excessive or abusive exercise of such authority will not be countenanced by the court,”

In its September 2015 order, authored by Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, the court observed that some meaningful political, administrative and financial powers must be devolved to local governments.


Published in The Express Tribune, January 28^th, 2016.