Ecclesiastical law, the constitutional law of a church, rules and regulations that govern a church or some part of the church.
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Showing posts with label constitutional law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label constitutional law. Show all posts
Monday, June 3, 2013
Monday, August 6, 2012
Partition of Punjab II : Jinnah's so called Islamic pronouncements
Continuing from last week, we come to Jinnah’s so-called Islamic pronouncements, which matter, at best, is an incidental tangent from the main issue but since it was raised by Mr Shakil Chaudhry in his article (Daily Times, July 26, 2012) , it needs to be addressed.
The claim that Jinnah was secular needs to be understood before it can be argued for or against. The claim that Jinnah was secular does not necessarily pre-suppose that all utterances of Jinnah the politician were consistently secular, especially when put against secularism as we understand it today. That Jinnah used the Islamic idiom on occasion is a fact and not necessarily an inconvenient fact for those who argue for Jinnah’s secular vision. Substance not form trumps rhetoric.
The claim that Jinnah was secular needs to be understood before it can be argued for or against. The claim that Jinnah was secular does not necessarily pre-suppose that all utterances of Jinnah the politician were consistently secular, especially when put against secularism as we understand it today. That Jinnah used the Islamic idiom on occasion is a fact and not necessarily an inconvenient fact for those who argue for Jinnah’s secular vision. Substance not form trumps rhetoric.
Partition of Punjab I
To my mind, it is an extraordinary waste of important public space to engage in tit for tat kind of back and forth comments through columns in national newspapers. I did not want to respond to Ishtiaq Ahmed’s rebuttal article last week (Daily Times, July 22, 2012) through this space and therefore, responded to it through a blog in some detail. Unfortunately, my blog elicited a response in the comments section by one Mr Shakil Chaudhry, who wrote an article in this newspaper. Be that as it may, I am forced to write a three-part response and the readers will just have to bear with me.
Everyone has the right to his own opinion and I would like the counterparties to realise that I too have the right to my opinion about Ishtiaq Ahmed’s work. Nevertheless, I still think that his recent book is a drastic improvement upon his earlier work. It is precisely for this reason the book needs to be highlighted. Coming as it is from a certain one-sided point of view, the content of the book shows that the violence in Punjab was caused by the insistence of Congress to partition Punjab at the insistence of the Sikhs.
Everyone has the right to his own opinion and I would like the counterparties to realise that I too have the right to my opinion about Ishtiaq Ahmed’s work. Nevertheless, I still think that his recent book is a drastic improvement upon his earlier work. It is precisely for this reason the book needs to be highlighted. Coming as it is from a certain one-sided point of view, the content of the book shows that the violence in Punjab was caused by the insistence of Congress to partition Punjab at the insistence of the Sikhs.
Monday, June 11, 2012
New Provinces
By Yasser Latif Hamdani
The emergence of new provinces holds out the most exciting promise of uniform development in our history. It also presents a constitutional solution to the lopsided federation that has existed so far. The number one issue in Pakistan that threatens the fabric of this nation state that exists today in the region is that of the inability of the central state structure to harmonise contending notions of identity working at cross-purposes. Therefore, the creation of new provinces is a welcome step in the right direction — the de-centralisation and rebuilding the state on the idea of unity in diversity.
The first outcome of this development is the re-configuration of the Senate. Inevitably, this means a reduction of seats allocated to each province in the Senate. This obviously means that Punjab as it stands today will triple its representation in the Senate but given that there is no guarantee that the three provinces replacing the main big province will act in unison, the situation should be acceptable to the smaller provinces. This may however serve as an example for other provinces, which may be tempted to maximise control and representation by choosing voluntary division.
The emergence of new provinces holds out the most exciting promise of uniform development in our history. It also presents a constitutional solution to the lopsided federation that has existed so far. The number one issue in Pakistan that threatens the fabric of this nation state that exists today in the region is that of the inability of the central state structure to harmonise contending notions of identity working at cross-purposes. Therefore, the creation of new provinces is a welcome step in the right direction — the de-centralisation and rebuilding the state on the idea of unity in diversity.
The first outcome of this development is the re-configuration of the Senate. Inevitably, this means a reduction of seats allocated to each province in the Senate. This obviously means that Punjab as it stands today will triple its representation in the Senate but given that there is no guarantee that the three provinces replacing the main big province will act in unison, the situation should be acceptable to the smaller provinces. This may however serve as an example for other provinces, which may be tempted to maximise control and representation by choosing voluntary division.
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