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1973 Constitution
Let me admit at the outset my COMPLETE incompetency at such legal, judicial and constitutional matters. I would, therefore, solicit the views of the more learned on my following queries:
Were the 1970 elections still valid and applicable, after the break up of Pakistan, to a part of the country then called West Pakistan? To my mind as the elections were held on ALL Pakistan (East and West Pakistan) basis and that now (in December 1971) East Pakistan had seceded, the results of those elections could not be applicable to only a part of the country West Pakistan which later came to be known as Pakistan.
Even then, the polls were held to elect the Members of the National Assembly and not the Members of the Constituent Assembly. To my mind the MNAs can only amend an existing constitution with a 2/3rd majority vote but cannot frame an altogether a new Constitution for a country for which a properly constituted Constituent Assembly under its own President is needed to do its task.
But wasn’t Zulfikar Ali Bhutto a Martial Law Administrator (a civilian MLA) when he ordered the writing of the Constitution? So essentially, even the 1973 Constitution is a product of the Martial Law Legal Framework Order !!
So what’s the much ado about mutilating it?! Its very foundations look to be on the loose sand than being on a rock.
Khisht-e awwal choon nahad maemar kaj
Ta suriya mirawad dewar kaj.
Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)
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