Details

Technical Note

Contextualising Administrative & Fiscal Decentralisation: The 18th Constitutional Amendment

Muhammad Ahsan Rana

INDUSTRY :

AREA : Corporate Law

ORGANIZATION : Pakistan

LENGTH : 40

LUMS No : 10-007-2013-2

PUBLICATION YEAR : 2013

KEYWORDS:

Administration,Fiscal Decentralisation,18th Constitutional Amendment,Provincial Governments,Federalism,Provisions,President,Powers

DESCRIPTION:

This paper is a detailed examination of the 18th Amendment, particularly of the devolution of powers and functions to the provincial governments. It is divided into six sections. Section 2 provides a brief history of federalism in Pakistan. It discusses key provisions from the 1935 Act, the Constitution of 1956 and the Constitution of 1962, that defined federal-provincial relations in Pakistan. Section 3 provides an overview of the 18th Amendment. It briefly examines the reduction of certain powers of the President, the new process for appointment of judges, provisions regarding political parties, addition to fundamental rights, formation of caretaker governments, etc. The enhanced role of the Council of Common Interests (CCI), abolition of the Concurrent List and changes to the Federal List and provisions regarding the National Finance Commission (NFC) are discussed in detail in Section 4. Section 5 examines the implementation challenge. Three sectors, viz. education, health and agriculture are selected to examine how far the Federal Government has transferred various functions to the Provincial Governments after the abolition of these ministries and in pursuance of the Amendment. Section six concludes the paper.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

N/A

SUBJECTS COVERED:

Law