KARACHI: Noted rights activist I.A. Rehman highlighted flaws in the Sindh Local Government Act, 2013 on Thursday and said that the priorities of the government were not reflected in the LG law.

Speaking at a workshop organised by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan to discuss and assess the pitfalls and prospects of the local government system, Mr Rehman said that any legislation represented the priorities of the government.

For instance, he said, if empowering women was a priority, it should be visible in the law. “[But] the priorities of the state or the government are not reflected in the law. At the same time, I don’t see democracy anywhere while going through this act. If it doesn’t support a democratic structure then what good is it?”

The workshop was attended by other rights organisations, including the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research and representatives of political parties and social commentators.

Mr Rehman, who was representing the HRCP, also criticised the various discussions held on the topic previously and said that local government continued to remain an unsettled issue even though it was discussed a lot.

Representing the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, provincial lawmaker Heer Soho said: “The biggest problem we face time and again is that even the sanitary system is looked over by the chief minister. Whether it is police, education, or health, the power to make decisions on these must be with the local government.”

Abdul Khaliq Junejo of the Jeay Sindh Mahaz (JSM) spoke about provincial autonomy and how most decisions were still made by the Centre. “Our problem is that we aspire to build our institutions based on international standards. But in reality things remain the same. The ministries are still the same, feudals still handpick their representatives in parliament. As a result of this, basic issues of rights and autonomy are not properly dealt with.”

A draft assessing Sindh’s local election framework under the SLGA 2013 was also distributed to the panellists. It basically pointed out how various legal provisions regarding the “local government elections require modification to align them with Pakistan’s international obligations under the relevant treaties the country is a part of”.

Among the various examples presented, one of them was about the election legislation and legal ambiguity in the SLGA. The draft said that the act “does not specifically give the power to enact rules to the Election Commission of Pakistan, the body which will implement the elections”.

Also, it highlighted how “the SLGA does not define the electoral systems for local government bodies leaving uncertainty on how candidates for union councils and union committees, municipal committees and town committees will be elected”.

Published in Dawn, July 18th, 2014