Rethinking the Eighteenth Amendment and devolution

Musharraf's devolution taught us that minimising federal role in education, health is counter-productive.

Absurd though it may sound to those who know little of the Eighteenth Amendment beyond it being the ultimate rebuke to the unconstitutionality of military dictators, parliament passed an important bill on women’s rights and it ended up not mattering because human rights no longer fall under the purview of those we elected at the centre. In 2010, the National Assembly took the long overdue step of passing a domestic violence bill, making what had previously been seen as a personal matter into a criminal. Due to lethargy and conservative objections, that bill lapsed before it could be approved in the Senate. Finally, earlier this year, the Senate finally got to passing the bill but it no longer mattered: thanks to the abolition of the concurrent list under the Eighteenth Amendment, the matter has now been devolved to the provinces and the law only took effect in the Islamabad Capital Territory.

When the Eighteenth Amendment was passed, the main focus of attention was the removal of clauses added to the Constitution by General (retd) Pervez Musharraf and Ziaul Haq, the clipping of the president’s powers and an end to term limits for prime ministers. On the rare occasion when the question of devolution arose, it was batted away by pointing out that this may help restore disgruntled provinces’ faith in the federation.

Now we are beginning to see the effects of the abolition of the concurrent list, which gives powers previously shared between the provinces and the centre solely to the former. Along with human rights, the provinces now also have greater powers in education and health. If the Musharraf experiment in devolution should have taught us anything, it is that minimising the federal role in these areas is counter-productive. Provinces are free to set their own curriculum and standards of education which guarantees that there will never be standarisation in the quality of education provided and no uniform standards to which everyone will have to adhere. Even more curious is the fact that higher education standards were taken away from the provinces when the concurrent list was abolished and placed under the Council of Common Interests. Why this was not done at all educational levels is puzzling.

Other countries that have a similar federal set-up nonetheless have ways of enforcing national standards. In the US, for instance, states have a healthy amount of autonomy but can be coaxed into adopting standards desired by the centre. The most common way of doing this is by denying federal funding to states that do not comply. That option, too, has been closed off by the Eighteenth Amendment since it does not allow the state to reduce National Finance Commission awards.

The problem here is not with devolution per se. Other than the few subjects I have mentioned above, where some federal input is necessary, it is usually better to have as much localised control as possible. Devolution, however, does not simply mean handing over power to the provinces and then patting yourself on the back for a job well done. Local politicians have to be empowered by giving them the fiscal means to be independent. The devolution promised by the Eighteenth amendment should be seen as a small step in a ladder where the main rungs require provincial governments to devolve power to more responsive politicians who have greater contact with constituents and run for local elections. These responsive politicians will only emerge if the leadership of political parties, so keen on devolution of government, apply the same principle to their own parties and devolve power there, too.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 21^st, 2012.