R e t u r n o f t h e h e r o i n e

PML(N) Senior Vice-President Maryam Nawaz returned to Pakistan after nearly four months in London, where she not only spent time with her father, Mian Nawaz Sharif, but cemented her position as his political heir by being appointed the party’s chief organizer That made it inevitable that her London sojourn would be in the nature of a vacation from the problems that await her The most immediate challenge will be the elections the party has to contest, to two provincial assemblies, and to the 112 National Assembly seats in all provinces that have been declared vacant consequent upon the acceptance of PTI members’ resignations While the date for the provincial elections has yet to be given by the respective Governors the Election Commission of Pakistan has already announced March 16 for the 34 seats whose MNAs’ resignations were accepted on January 17 The remaining resignations were accepted on January 20 and 25, allowing the ECP to hold those by-elections a little later Thus the by-elections will be more like general elections, especially if the provincial elections are held anytime soon opposing Maryam will be a rampant PTI, eager for a return to the power it held less in a year ago

Ms Nawaz’s tools to deal with this will depend on whether she can gain control of the party Her being her father ’s right-hand woman was swallowed, but the party’s leadership seems a little less willing to accept her as their boss Already, former PM Shahid Khaqan Abbassi and former Finance Minister Miftah Ismail seem to have marked themselves as potential centres of opposition Wresting control of the party from all of the ‘uncles’ in the middle of the campaign is a major challenge

It does no help that one of the ‘uncles’ is not just President of the party, but as her father s brother, very literally an uncle It also does not help that she has chosen to defend the record of another, literally an uncle by virtue of being her sister ’s father-in-law, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar She showed awareness that the economy, especially inflation, would be her main electoral challenge, in her address to the workers who welcomed her, but her solution, that Senator Dar was to be trusted a little while longer, might give raise o the suspicion that she had not really worked out a solution to this particular problem

AR E there going to be elections in the next 90 days as, and if postponed under what law? The question which has baffled many constitutional experts, if not multiple politicians and media analysts, who all want to know what will happen; may, as things unfold, decide the future course of our country The elections (that is, provincial elections) and any delay can only happen in a legal framework, and there are no second guesses that this will be decided in the realm of the Supreme Court

The starting point is the binding Constitution which is being interpreted by many but this article will analyze it slightly differently The legal opinion revolves around the idea that the wording of the Constitution is rigid when it comes to the 90–day period after the dissolution of assemblies The starting point is Article 105 which states that if the provincial assemblies are dissolved the Governor will announce the date for elections in no later than 90 days The question being, how will a delay be flexed around article 105? This will be challenged and sensing the political temperature it will not be far-fetched to assume that PTI may challenge this issue in the Supreme Court Hence it should be examined what would be argued in front of the Supreme Court in favor of time extension

A r g u m e n t o n e :- As a constitutional lawyer the first word that strikes me is appoint in Article 105 The word “appoint” versus “announcement” must be analyzed as to why the framers of the Constitution chose appoint and not announce In the Constitution wherever the word “appoint” comes, it is assigned with a consultation model, that is to say the appointment must be consulted with or made through a process of consultation with someone in that position of authority Hence within the Constitution there are consultation or advising roles which are assigned For instance, it is given in the Constitution when someone appoints a minister, or attorney general (as under Article 140) or a Commission ( as under Article 155), or appointment of National Finance Commission (NFC, as under article 160), appointment of auditor general (as under article 168) appointment of Judges of Superior Courts (under article 175 A) all use the word “appoint” and the so called mechanism assumes that any appointment will be done so after consultation with some assigned authority

Therefore, it may be argued that when the governor appoints a caretaker Chief minister after consultation, it is the very spirit of Article 105 that the governor may again consult an authority for fixing the election date and hence explains that any delay comes after the governor “appoints” or announces the next elections In such a case, it may be the President or even the Election Commission who is the authority, but this will be raised in the Supreme Court at the time of filing such petitions as to who is competent authority for setting the “realistic” election date How will be so and why is a more technically poised legal question for a later debate

A r g u m e n t t w o:- Under article 235 the President may impose financial emergency in the country or in a province This argument may be made that in times of financial crisis the resources of the country should not be allocated towards an election and elections should be put on hold till the economic conditions stabilizes This will need to be justified and again will put tremendous pressure on the Courts to justify how elections can be postponed when the popular vote is out of the assemblies The morality or equity of fairplay versus the need of the hour will be raised as an argument

A r g u m e n t t h r e e :- Article 112 discusses how an assembly may be dissolved, and as a consequence elections are announced, but interestingly article 112 does not discuss the date or any mechanism of setting the timelines of elections This, some may argue, sets two interesting contrasts: that the 90-day deadline is perhaps not as important as a commitment timeline implying that extension in elections is possible beyond the 90-day period

A r g u m e n t F o u r:- It may be argued that if the Chief Minister wanted elections and knows he would win a majority, then what was the hurry or need to dissolve in the first place and if there is an administrative” delay as would be claimed by Election Commission, then let it be

All those past precedents regarding the 90-day deadline for holding elections read with article 105 (as discussed above) revolve mostly around the incidents or times when assemblies were dissolved without involving the Chief Minister Seldom it happened that the National Assemblies are not dissolved but a Chief Minister voluntarily dissolves the assembly This is uniquely different and perhaps mirror opposite to the past episodes when the governor did not want to dissolve the assembly while the Chief Minister was eager to do so In this scenario it may be argued that if the Chief Minister wanted elections and knew he will win a majority what was the hurry or need to dissolve in the first place

A r g u m e n t r e A s o n F i v e :- The Election Commission pleads its inability to manage elections in 90 days The possibility of any delay must be understood with the fact that the Election Commission under the constitution and law will conduct the elections as under Article 218(3) and Article 219 the authority and delegated responsibility to conduct the elections is assigned to the Election Commission

While Article 224(3) discusses the election timeline in 90 days however some may argue that Article 224(3) does not make it binding. That is to say that elections may be delayed if the Election Commission makes its case that it is unable to deliver the “fair and free” elections on “time” but may only be able to do so if provided with “necessary resources”.

While Article 224(3) discusses the election timeline in 90 days however some may argue that Article 224(3) does not make it binding That is to say that elections may be delayed if the Election Commission makes its case that it is unable to deliver the “fair and free” elections on “time” but may only be able to do so if provided with necessary resources The Election Commission may also quote that the PTI is threatening its employees, and PTI does not have the mandate to doubt its ability to conduct such elections hence all the more reason to delay till these things are rectified Whether he courts give in to this line of arguments or not is yet to be seen

The writer is an expert on constitutional, regulatory and legal issues He is also an instructor with Civil Service Training institutes in Pakistan and abroad and can be reached at hassan shah@hys com pk

No sector has ever been subjected to so many reckless experiments as higher education, the cumulative effect of which is that our higher education, while lying as a bewildering welter of pre-colonial and colonial impulses has lagged miles behind the goals and ideals of the 21st century

To add to confusion further, HEC’s new undergraduate policy was introduced one cannot help but be flabbergasted at the higgledy-piggledy, hotchpotch way the entire idea of undergraduate education has been worked out Anyone having the slightest working knowledge of the worldwide trends in higher education will be stunned out of their wits at the wisdom of policy makers to have brushed off in an offhand way the key policy determinants that are rooted in our very ground realities It is understandable, then, that it has drawn justified skepticism from various quarters who oppose sinking more money into what they see as a boondoggle of education

The UGE policy 2020 came up with the purported objective to enhance the likelihood of success [sic] The policy further reads that the latter has to be realized through a scheme of studies to familiarize our undergrad students with a broad variety of fields of inquiry and approaches to knowledge in the 21st century Let s get down to the nitty gritty of the structural and functional areas of policy The minimum requirement for a prospective stu- dent to qualify for a BS degree has been set at 120 credit hours in total, out of which a student is required to opt for general courses of 39 credits The courses indispensable to all the specialized fields are supposed to be completed by the end of the fourth semester

The courses on general education have been categorized along the following lines: the first category is that of the Breadth Courses ranging over the broad disciplines of Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences, and Natural Sciences out of which two courses each have to be studied The Foundational Skills Courses make up the second category consisting of 3 expository and 2 quantitative reasoning subjects Two subjects each in Pakistan Studies and Islamiat fall within the scope of Civilizational courses The HEC prides itself on bringing in re- forms that have streamlined higher education Notwithstanding its claims, one may wonder how far along our higher education sector is with the trends and priorities of the 21st century While dabbling with such consequential matters as higher education, the

Any strenuous attempt at higher education reforms without factoring in elementary and secondary education is going to be a total fiasco. The universities will fare better provided that a holistic approach, incorporating the sustainable goals for tackling all the sectors of education system including technical and vocational ones, is solemnly visualized equation of policy with its marketability in the face of the peculiar tenor of the society has been left out of the equation with nonchalant abandon– an attitude which betrays not just the naïveté, but arrogance, of those who are supposed to aggregate the divergent factors into policy formulation processes

The cursory look at the foregoing policy reveals that the latter hardly rests on the ideals of objectivity and rationality It fails to take note of the ractical constraints and institutional anomalies affecting Pakistan s universities the pillars of our higher education sector, which are creaking under the burden of drastic cuts in grants It is something that many believe to be precipitating the unprecedented crisis in the universities already on a ventilator such that they might end up dead!

Firstly our universities are incredibly illequipped to acclimate to the new scheme for couple of more reasons– the unavailability of surplus faculty for teaching such technical subjects galore as Philosophy, Logic, Critical Thinking, Psychology, and Regional Lan- guages and financial limitations to hire teachers for a litany of courses of general education, to name but tw The personal observations further reveal that more often than not students are faced with a Hobson’s Choice between X and Y or Y and X, that is, no alternative at all for opting from the pool of general courses

Even worse, the so-called UGE policy continues to pose technical conundrums for our professors and those heading various academic departments, hence leaving different stakeholders flummoxed about the letter and spirit of the said policy When there is not a single agreed definition of the UGE policy, how can there be any consensus about its implementation? Resultantly we see no rhyme or reason to nonsense cloaked in the garb of the UGE being imposed upon our students

Secondly the availability of faculty in terms of both quantity and quality presents rather a nightmarish picture of the existing public sector institutions At present as paltry a figure as just 25 percent faculty members are PhDs To worsen the situation further, academic terrorism with the thriving fraudulent research industry is rampant across the Pakistani universities You will find everything but a meaningful research culture therein!

Thirdly, any strenuous attempt at higher education reforms without factoring in elementary and secondary education is going to be a total fiasco The universities will fare better provided that a holistic approach, incorporating the sustainable goals for tackling all the sectors of education system including technical and vocational ones, is solemnly visualized

The writer is a lecturer at the Benazir Bhutto Women s University Sukkur