Pakistan’s Constitution tells two different stories about devolution. The first concerns the relationship between the Federation and the Provinces. Here, the Constitution is detailed, institutional and protective. Article 160 establishes the National Finance Commission, defines its composition, requires its constitution at intervals not exceeding five years, specifies its mandate, provides for implementation, and requires its recommendations and action taken upon them to be laid before Parliament and the Provincial Assemblies. The Eighteenth Amendment went further by protecting the provincial share from falling below that of the previous Award and by requiring monitoring of implementation.

The second story concerns the Provinces and Local Governments. Article 140A requires each Province to establish a local-government system and devolve political, administrative and financial responsibility and authority to elected local representatives. Local-government elections are to be held by the Election Commission of Pakistan. The constitutional command is clear. But compared with Article 160, the machinery behind Article 140A is conspicuously sparse.

The contrast is striking because the Eighteenth Amendment dealt with both provisions: it strengthened Article 160 while placing Article 140A in its present form. That difference goes to the heart of Pakistan’s unfinished devolution. Article 160 does not merely instruct the Federation to share resources with the Provinces. It creates a commission, ensures provincial representation, establishes a recurring process, defines its mandate, provides for implementation and protects the provincial share.

Article 140A, by contrast, does not prescribe the essential functions of local government, the minimum fiscal entitlement of local bodies, the periodicity or architecture of Provincial Finance Commissions, or an automatic mechanism for transferring an objectively determined local share. In one case, devolution is surrounded by constitutional machinery. In the other, much of its substance is left to provincial law. This is the central asymmetry.

The case for provincial autonomy is well understood. Pakistan’s history of centralisation produced legitimate demands for greater provincial legislative, administrative and fiscal space, and the Eighteenth Amendment strengthened the federal compact. But devolution cannot logically stop........

© The Friday Times