We are trying to doctor a sick democracy without understanding its soul. This is akin to treating hepatitis with dirty water or burning wet wood with a wet match. Our lawmakers are doing everything except making laws. During the last three years of the current regime, the parliamentary opposition could have forced the government to legislate thousands of dynamic, multi-tier management systems, perpetual constitutional regulatory institutions, self-regulatory organisations, spy watchdogs, paralegals in the legal system, conflict of interest commissioners, conflict intervener agencies, ethical bodies, think tanks, surveillance agencies on political crimes, protection laws for whistle-blowers, private professional bodies, regulators to keep watch over every single economic and non-economic activity of the government.
Such legislation could have helped build a wall between the country’s countless precious resources and the greedy political elite. But the million dollar question is: who will make an unconscious opposition realise its role?
Muhammad Afzal
Scarborough
Ontario
