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Pakistan
The 1962 Constitution
In 1958 Ayub Khan had promised a speedy return to constitutional
government. In February 1960, an eleven-member constitutional
commission was established. The commission's recommendations for
direct elections, strong legislative and judicial organs, free
political parties, and defined limitations on presidential authority
went against Ayub Khan's philosophy of government, so he ordered
other committees to make revisions.
The 1962 constitution retained some aspects of the Islamic nature
of the republic but omitted the word Islamic in its original
version; amid protests, Ayub Khan added that word later. The president
would be a Muslim, and the Advisory Council of Islamic Ideology
and the Islamic Research Institute were established to assist
the government in reconciling all legislation with the tenets
of the Quran and the sunna. Their functions were advisory and
their members appointed by the president, so the ulama had no
real power base.
Ayub Khan sought to retain certain aspects of his dominant authority
in the 1962 constitution, which ended the period of martial law.
The document created a presidential system in which the traditional
powers of the chief executive were augmented by control of the
legislature, the power to issue ordinances, the right of appeal
to referendum, protection from impeachment, control over the budget,
and special emergency powers, which included the power to suspend
civil rights. As the 1965 elections showed, the presidential system
of government was opposed by those who equated constitutional
government with parliamentary democracy. The 1962 constitution
relaxed martial law limitations on personal freedom and made fundamental
rights justiciable. The courts continued their traditional function
of protecting the rights of individual citizens against encroachment
by the government, but the government made it clear that the exercise
of claims based on fundamental rights would not be permitted to
nullify its previous progressive legislation on land reforms and
family laws.
The National Assembly, consisting of 156 members (including six
women) and elected by an electoral college of 80,000 Basic Democrats,
was established as the federal legislature. Legislative powers
were divided between the National Assembly and provincial legislative
assemblies. The National Assembly was to hold sessions alternatively
in Islamabad and Dhaka; the Supreme Court would also hold sessions
in Dhaka. The ban on political parties was operational at the
time of the first elections to the National Assembly and provincial
legislative assemblies in January 1960, as was the prohibition
on "EBDOed" politicians. Many of those elected were new and merged
into factions formed on the basis of personal or provincial loyalties.
Despite the ban, political parties functioned outside the legislative
bodies as vehicles of criticism and formers of opinion. In late
1962, political parties were again legalized and factions crystallized
into government and opposition groups. Ayub Khan combined fragments
of the old Muslim League and created the Pakistan Muslim League
(PML) as the official government party.
The presidential election of January 1965 resulted in a victory
for Ayub Khan but also demonstrated the appeal of the opposition.
Four political parties joined to form the Combined Opposition
Parties (COP). These parties were the Council Muslim League, strongest
in Punjab and Karachi; the Awami League, strongest in East Pakistan;
the National Awami Party, strongest in the North-West Frontier
Province, where it stood for dissolving the One Unit Plan; and
the Jamaat-i-Islami, surprisingly supporting the candidacy of
a woman. The COP nominated Fatima Jinnah (sister of the Quaid-i-Azam
and known as Madar-i-Millet, the Mother of the Nation) their presidential
candidate. The nine-point program put forward by the COP emphasized
the restoration of parliamentary democracy. Ayub Khan won 63.3
percent of the electoral college vote. His majority was larger
in West Pakistan (73.6 percent) than in East Pakistan (53.1 percent).
Data as of April 1994
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