A recent Islamabad High Court (IHC) ruling has made it illegal for special assistants and advisers to the prime minister to participate in cabinet proceedings. The ruling establishes that while both ‘special’ categories are lawfully entitled to minister-level perks and privileges, they are not, legally speaking, formal members of the cabinet and have no executive authority. Although they can attend cabinet committee meetings “on special requests”, they are not entitled to chair or even be members of cabinet committees.
Interestingly, the 23-page judgment rejected the petitioner’s core demands regarding the large number of special advisers and assistants — 15 at last count — but did say, with a caveat, that the number should be capped at five. The most immediate and significant impact of the ruling will be on the finance ministry as Pakistan doesn’t have a finance minister at the moment. Abdul Hafeez Shaikh has been filling the role as an adviser for over a year. Establishment, Commerce, Overseas Pakistanis, and NHRC are among the other ministries without full ministers. Some of them have been run by advisers since the government took power. It will be interesting to see what the government does as a workaround — will it give existing cabinet members additional charges as a stop-gap arrangement or reshuffle the entire cabinet while adding new members?
If not challenged, the judgment will go a long way in formalising how the country is run. Pakistan is a parliamentary democracy. In such a government, the cabinet is supposed to be chosen from the peoples’ representatives. Instead, we have often been governed more like a presidential republic, where cabinet members are selected by the ruler, with approval from parliament. Unfortunately, since it is much more difficult for parliament to block unelected cabinet appointments in a parliamentary system, the process becomes virtually dictatorial. Over the years, this has given cronies a rubber stamp route to the cabinet. Every government in recent memory has loaded up with unelected ‘special’ appointees. Without debating the quality of appointees, we can still say the PTI also over-relied on this method. Let us hope this judgment serves as a push in the right direction.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 10th, 2020.
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