Revival of Magistracy System Need of the Hour

8/7/2019 Revival of Magistracy System Need of the Hour

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Revival of magistracy system need of the hourThursday, August 26, 2010

Shakeel Anjum

IslamabadThe gruesome murder of two brothers at the hand of a mob has brought forth another

truth in its stark reality too and that is the need of revival of magistracy.

The institution had been introduced by the British rulers as a check on the unbridled

power of police and as a shield to protect general public from its excesses. Police couldnot enter any premises, nor could it arrest any person, without the prior sanction of

relevant magistrate. Similarly, police could not use force on its own while dealing withprotests, demonstrations and other events of the sort and rather had to seek permissionfrom the magistrate who was supposed to be present on all such occasions.

And finally, ilaqa magistrate could be approached by the general public in case of any

grievance against police who would then inquire into the matter and take necessarymeasures.

The magistrates in fact used to represent the writ of the state. They would be seen

moving all around and keeping a check on encroachments, food adulteration, illegal

hoarding, price escalation and more. In times of law and order situations, nationalemergencies and natural calamities, they had the requisite power and status needed to

coordinate amongst various stake holders and assemble all the local resources to have

maximum impact.The institution drew its strength from laws, rules, traditions and history. However, with

a single stroke of pen, Pervez Musharraf abolished the institution. Many different

arrangements were tried afterwards but none of them worked. The writ of the statecould never be restored to its former position.

Police was biggest beneficiary of the abolition of the institution of magistracy. They

were freed from any effective system of check and balance and the general public wasleft directly on its mercy.

Innumerable incidents of police high-handedness can be quoted in the wake of abolition

of magistracy amongst which the barbaric murder of the two brothers in Sialkot is the

most recent as well as the most prominent. Had magistrates still been there, the ilaqamagistrate would have arrived at the place of incident as it was one of their premier

duties to reach wherever public gathered and take control of the situation. In times of

public rage, people still listened to him and had confidence in his words as theyidentified him as one amongst themselves and dissociated from the police. Mob

handling through stick and carrot was their specialty which they used to perfect through

experience and practice.In Sialkot-like situation, a magistrate would have negotiated with the mob and

convinced them to give law a chance to take its course. He would have ordered use of

force by police too if the mob had not paid heed to his request. Still he might not have


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succeeded but at least he would have tried to save the boys an element which wastotally missing in the recent incident. Today a chief minister has to come into play to

take the district police chief to task; yesterday, in the system originally introduced by

the British, even his ACR was written by the district magistrate.Similarly, in the flood-hit areas too, the magistrates would have been quite useful. They

would have coordinated amongst all the relevant departments to carry out relief work as

no other department enjoys so much of local influence today which was once enjoyedby the magistrates on account of their legal powers and traditional role. The

government has tried to fill the lacuna through ad-hoc measures but no person or

institution has been able to take the place of erstwhile magistrates.

This does not mean that the magistrates were panacea of all ills. There is no denying thefact that over the time, weaknesses had crept into the system and working of

magistrates had deteriorated in many ways. There are others who label the institution as

the relic of the British Raj but if magistracy was their legacy then so was army,judiciary and many other institutions.

Magistracy was in fact a useful institution which the British had introduced in view of

the local circumstances and nothing justified its abolition. At best, reforms could havebeen introduced in the system in order to bring it in tune with the modern day realities.

It was generally believed that one of the first things the new government would do inthe wake of departure of Musharraf would be revival of the magistracy. However,improvement in governance at lowest level does not seem to be anyones priority. Even

the chief minister of Punjab, who is respected by many for his hard work and

efficiency, has not been able to attend to such an important matter. The fact is that the

institution of magistracy would have to be revived sooner or later if not by thisgovernment then by any subsequent one. If so, then why not sooner rather than later?

Commissionerate system on the anvil

Friday, June 27, 2008

By Salis bin Perwaiz

Karachi

The revival of the Commissioner system is in its final stage and it is expected that the

system may be reintroduced within a couple of months throughout the country except

Islamabad where the said system already prevails successfully, a source informed.

Sources said that high level meetings were going on in Islamabad in order to revive theCommissioner system in the whole country as crime situations were worsening with time.

The reason for the authoritys emphasis on this system lies in the fact that even after the

promulgation of the Police Order 2002 crime could not be effectively controlled, whichresulted in the decreased morale of the police.


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Sources added that the government was also considering legally empowering deputycommissioners with the magisterial powers of the district magistrate a power which

they enjoyed before the introduction of the 2002 order. Hence the issue of key import is

the powers of the district magistrate without which the system will not be able to worksuccessfully.

According to a legal expert, the powers of the district magistrate were curtailed as anexercise in the separation of powers of the executive and the judiciary and hence cannot

be given to the deputy commissioner. However, with an Act of Parliament, he can be

given limited magisterial powers to maintain the law and order situation in the district

such as imposing Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (Cr PC) which are beingenjoyed by the District Police Officers (DPO) as well as the Nazims of the districts.

Besides that, as under the Police Order 2002, Nazims have been given powers to maintainthe general law and order situation in the districts, which they can achieve by giving

appropriate authority to their respective DPOs. However such powers are limited; the

Nazim can not interfere in the transfer process of the postings of Station House Officers(SHO) and other Police Officers.

The same situation prevailed previously as well where the deputy commissioner,although fully empowered to control crime, never interfered in the internal discipline of

the Police force or the transfers of the SHOs; these were left up to the SSP to deal with.

The deputy commissioner also used to coordinate between all the other departments ofthe districts besides the law and order. During emergencies and natural calamities, the

deputy commissioner would mobilise all the resources available to him and try to control

natural disasters like floods, cyclones, heavy rains etc.

The deputy commissioner also enjoyed power as the district treasury officer as well as the

head of the district Red Cross Committee, Civil defense, district armed services board,and the relief committees. The commissioner was the coordinator as well as the

administrator the division. He would work along his counterpart the deputy inspector

general of Police and used to exercise full control over the law and order situation as

well as the crime in the division.

Under the Commissionerate system, Karachi was divided into five districts South,

West, East, Malir and Central each of which were assigned a deputy. Karachi was thenfurther divided into sub divisions being supervised by the Sub-Divisional Magistrate

(SDM) who worked alongside the Assistant Superintendent of the Police (ASP) or the

Deputy Superintendent of the Police (DSP) and the system worked smoothly in the city.

The head commissioner of the city was Commissioner Karachi who was responsible to

the Chief Secretary and the Home Secretary as far as the law and order was concerned.

Likewise, the rest of the Sindh was also divided on the same pattern one commissionerin Hyderabad, and another at Larkana and Sukkur. It may be noted here that the Larkana

division was upgraded into a separate division under the tenure of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto,

the then Prime Minister of Pakistan, and the first commissioner of Larkana was KhalidKharal while (the late) Pinjal Khan was its DIG.


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Sources say that it is the need of the hour to give magisterial powers to

deputy commissioners like before, and the government should revive the old

divisions and the districts up to the sub-division while the Police Order 2002should be withdrawn.

However Regional Police Officers should continue one at Sukkur, another atHyderabad and a third at Karachi to administratively control the police force and the

DIGs working at the divisionary levels. It may be recalled that during the year 1986 the

government of Sindh appointed Riaz Ahmed Sipra as the Additional IG Sukkur while the

DIG Sukkur was working under him.

[email protected]

Source:http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=120756

Collapsing local governanceLocal government legislative framework needs to be finalised immediately

By Raza Rumi

Recent floods have exposed the capacity of the state to govern, especially at thelocal level. The disintegration of local state is not a recent phenomenon. The

continued experimentation with and frequent strangulation of local governancearrangements have led to a situation that Pakistans burgeoning population is now

without a representative, accountable local state.

Erosion of state writ: Three historical trends are noticeable for their impact on theoverall governance and the writ of the state. First, centralisation is a tendency that is

most attractive to those who govern Pakistan at the federal and provincial levels. The

post-colonial Pakistani state has retained the official obsession of controlling powerand patronage at the top and denuding the local space for democratic development

and sound mechanisms of accountability. Secondly, granting local autonomy has, byand large, been a smokescreen for powerful military governments to bypass

provincial politics and control the levers of state and society from above. Thus, wehave an established pattern: local government experiments flourish under

authoritarian regimes and get undermined whenever democracy, a la Pakistanivariety, returns. Finally, the constant denial of a responsive state at the local level

has led to erosion of state legitimacy and the void has been filled in by mafias,politico-criminal gangs and militant non-state actors.

While the 2001 Ordinance empowered the local governments and led to someimprovements in service delivery, the abolishment of executive magistracy led to a

complete collapse of social regulation functions of the local state. The local andspecial laws that require executive action and on-the-spot enforcement (food

adulteration, public hygiene, forests, public nuisances etc.) slid from partialenforcement earlier to a wide-ranging non-enforcement. Data is difficult to gather in

a secretive and fragmented public sector culture but media reports have citednumerous instances where flagrant abuse and violation of local laws and regulation
mailto:[email protected]://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=120756mailto:[email protected]://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=120756


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has taken place. In addition, the non-enforcement and later subversion of PoliceOrder 2002 further compounded issues of local governance. Partial implementation

of 2001 reforms has after a decade reached willful non-implementation withoutalternative arrangements. Lack of police accountability and demolition of executive

magistracy have had grave implications.

Service delivery: The recently published Social Audit Survey 2010 revealed that over

the period 2002-2010 (during the functioning of the local government bodies), all,considered indicators had improved (level of satisfaction had increased). These

included sewerage and sanitation (25 percent from 12 percent), water supply (39percent from 18 percent), health (33 percent from 23 percent), with marginal

increases in quantifiable satisfaction for education and drinking water. Thereplacement of the local government bodies has been criticized for a lack of empirical

evidence against their functioning, and the lost potential during the relief activitiesassociated with the super-flood that has hit Pakistan. However, the more worrying

aspect of this provincial conundrum is the slow pace with which a relativelysuccessful system that has been scrapped is being replaced. The void being created

by this sluggishness is adding to the deficient capacity of the state to provideadequate services to the countrys population, something that has been aggravated

and brought to the fore by the ongoing crisis.

Conceptual fallacies: It is unfortunate that most analysts in Pakistan tend to focus on

the centre and the top level governance arrangements with little attention to wherethe state is most relevant: in the remote villages and qasbas, in small towns and

union councils. Lack of fair mediation and negotiation of citizen interest meanstraditional power structures remain intact and prosper at the expense of public

interest. Even the hyped lawyers movement (2007-2009) focused on apex justiceinstitutions and paid scant attention to issues of subordinate courts, local dispute

resolution and above all social justice. The discourse remains locked in theconventional wisdom: fix things at the top with good individuals and institutions will

auto-correct. This approach to institutional development is akin to the failed anddiscredited trickle down theory whereby economic growth gains are somehow

supposed to reach the poor.

Old wine in new bottles: With the lapsing of temporary constitutional protection on

31st of December 2009 provided to the Local Government Ordinance 2001, the PPP-led government abolished the National Reconstruction Bureau (which had introduced

the local government system in 2000). In this context, Punjab and Sindh are yet toenact local government laws, while Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) have

enacted the new legislation which essentially reverses the reform achieved in 2001

and reverts to the bureaucratic led, provincialised management of localgovernments. In Balochistan, the bill named Balochistan Local Government

(Amendment) Act, 2010? has now been passed. The Act provides for deletion of the

sub-section (4) of Section 150 of Balochistan Local Government Ordinance2001which calls for holding of local governments elections every four years. It also

empowers the provincial government to appoint administrators in districts andtowns/tehsils vice nazims and restricts it to hold local councils elections within a

year. Even if all the legislative frameworks are completed in the next few weeks, theprovincial governments are likely to cite floods as a logistical constraint against the

holding of local government elections.

Governance vacuum: In Sindh, PPP and MQM face a deadlock between divergent

positions, whereby the PPP wants to curtail the powers of the local governments byenforcing the LGO system of 1979, whereas, the MQM favours the empowered local


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governments in the light of the SLGO 2001. The effectiveness of local governmentbodies in KP has been stalled by successive crises and parliamentary ineffectiveness.

The largest part of Pakistan, the Punjab with a population of nearly 10 crores is beingmanaged by district coordination officers acting as administrators in place of Nazims.

Further, the revival of the commissioners offices in the province has led to anotherlayer of bureaucracy with no provision for citizen participation. With the province and

the federation passing to and for the responsibility of holding elections in theprovince, the Lahore High Court has issued a notice to the province to get its act

together and resolve all pending issues. There is a draft law which is being debatedby the provincial government, which is a hybrid of 1979 and 2001 models of local

government.

Urgent need to engage communities: In the aftermath of the floods which have

affected more than 20 million people through the destruction of crops, livestock,infrastructure and residential facilities, it is necessary that reconstruction activities

invoke community participation. Involving the affected community in reconstructionnot only provides a direct stake to the affectees in reconstruction abilities (thereby,

adding the element of ownership to such projects), but also utilizes the resource poolpresent in the community, in turn creating income-earning potential for those who

have lost almost everything in the floods. However, the lack of elected tiers of local

government will impede this process. In the immediate term, the options are limited.Thus the role of community organisations and their networks becomes quite

significant.

Rural Support Programmes: Grassroots organisations such as Rural SupportProgrammes (RSPs) are uniquely positioned to exploit their already established local

networks. Over the years, the RSPs have been able to acquire intense leverage inrural populations through their programmes of social mobilization. Community

mobilization involves the formation of male and female community groups at thevillage level, and their indigenous management of interventions aimed at

rehabilitation. Such an approach can enhance the role of target communities inreconstruction activities of the government and other stakeholders in their respective

areas. Given the fact that the flood-affectees will be hard pressed to acquire seedsfor sowing at the prescribed time in the context of a dearth of residual resources,

such income opportunities will be more than welcome. Involvement in ruralreconstruction will also take the pressure off urban centers which promise the flood

victims little more than absorption into the already bulging informal sector of theeconomy.

The provincial governments especially Sindh and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa face an

uphill task of restoring livelihoods and arresting discontent. More importantly, afterthe 18th Amendment they have a huge responsibility to make the local state

functional not through unaccountable bureaucrats but through elected

representatives. This is vital for their credibility and legitimacy in the medium term.Therefore, the local government legislative frameworks need to finalized immediately

and local elections should take place. In the meantime, they should ensure that thelocal civil society, communities, media and other stakeholders are fully involved in

the reconstruction process. Reports on rewarding the favourites and impairing aidflows are potentially disastrous for the future of democracy given the relentless

attacks on the political elites these days.

Finally, to curb terrorism, enforce local regulation and to improve services (including

post-flood relief and reconstruction) the local state must work. There is no otheroption.


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The writer is a policy expert based in Lahore

(www.razarumi.com). Email: [email protected]

______________________________________--

Bhotani for revival of DC institution

Ghulam Tahir

QuettaSpeaker Balochistan Assembly Aslam Bhotani says Chief Minister Nawab

Muhammad Aslam Raisani, members of his cabinet and the MPAs are actively engaged

in improving the law and order situation in the province.

Talking to this scribe here Saturday Bhotani said that the incidents of target killing in the

province were unfortunate but sufficient progress had been made in reducing such

incidents. He pointed out that the murder of Nawab Akbar Bugti during Musharrafregime was the main cause of deteriorating law and order situation which has created

hatred and despondency among the youths and militants.

He maintained that it is responsibility of the federal and provincial governments to

remove the trust deficit to improve the over all situation in the province.

Referring to NFC Award the Speaker said that it was the outstanding achievement of

Nawab Aslam Raisani ensuring financial relief for the province which was indeed a

positive step by the federal government to accelerate the development activities andbuilding chain of dams to store the flash flood water for irrigation of million of acres of

land laying barren for want of irrigation facilities. He observed that the NFC Awardwould go a long way to put an end to the sense of deprivation and leave positive impacton the minds of people.

Referring to the restoration of the institution of Deputy Commissioner in the province he

said it is of paramount importance to restore this institution for improving law and ordersituation.

He said the institution of Deputy Commissioner is functioning successfully in Islamabadwhy provinces be deprived of the institution of Deputy Commissioner. The post of

Deputy Commissioners should be restored without any further delay, he said.

_____________________________________________

PESHAWAR: NWFP to revive posts of deputy commissionersBy Mohammad Ali Khan

Thursday, 26 Mar, 2009
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MEDIA GALLERYStars at Lakhme

PESHAWAR, March 25: The NWFP government is converting the post of districtcoordination officer into deputy commissioner, a step believed to help regain the glory

bureaucracy had lost in the aftermath of the devolution of power plan introduced in 2001.

A summary for converting the existing 24 posts of DCOs into deputy commissioners

(DCs) has been forwarded to Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti, who has

principally agreed but a formal decision is expected shortly, an official told Dawn here onWednesday.

The NWFP was the first province to revive the seven revenue divisions abolished in 2001when former president Pervez Musharraf introduced the devolution of power plan,

aiming at curtailing the powers of bureaucracy.

Amendments to the Land Revenue Act adopted by the NWFP Assembly at its last sitting

legalised the revival of the seven divisions, each to be headed by a commissioner.

Since the amendments also had provisions for the posts of DCs and assistant

commissioners (ACs) to deal with revenue-related issues and cases, the easy way to

materialise them was to change the nomenclature of the DCOs post as DCs, said the

official, adding: The revival of posts of DC and AC will be carried out in the samemanner.

Before the introduction of the existing local bodies system, the post of DC was the centreof power at the local level and the DC would also act as district magistrate apart from

providing lead role to all the departments. Similarly, the DC would supervise police as

well as serve as a coordinator between district and provincial governments.

However, most of the executive powers were delegated to the elected representatives,

whereas police were virtually made an independent entity after implementation of the

new system.

Many in official circles believe that the nazims who were delegated the executive powers

once enjoyed by the bureaucracy were not trained enough to exercise their authority in aproper manner that caused perplexity and failure of institutions.

The official said the proposed Local Government Act, 2008, which had been approved by

the provincial cabinet and submitted to the federal government, also spoke about therevival of executive magistracy to be exercised by deputy commissioners and assistant

commissioners in the province.

The provincial government, he said, considered that it needed revival of the old system of

commissioners, deputy commissioners and assistant commissioners to deal with the

issues of lawlessness, price hike and general public complaints.
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Revival of Magistracy System Need of the Hour

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