To: The Parliamentarians
From: SDPD
Date: 06/06/2012
Subject: Empowering the Parliamentary Oversight on issues related to Foreign Policy

Summary
A dire need exists to increase the involvement of Parliamentarians in the realm of Foreign Policy as advisory participants, which had been previously dominated exclusively by the Executive on the pretext of National Sovereignty. Despite the presence of noteworthy members on the Board of National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Foreign Policy, little progress has been made to advance the real aims of this Committee. Its failure can be attributed to multiple factors ranging from inherent institutional weakness to unavailability of adequate research facilities, leading to a prevalence of greater disinterest among the Board members, marked by low attendance, being witnessed during the meeting sessions of the Committee. Hence, an urgent call of action is required for maximum engagement of Parliamentary role in Foreign Policy formulation.

Context
The domain of foreign policy holds critical value for a country like Pakistan which is located at the crossroads of Great Powers like Russia & China. In addition, it also provides a route to Central Asian states which are endowed with massive reserves of oil & natural gas, providing significant economic incentives. Being a key ally of US in the on-going ‘War on Terrorism’ also enhances its strategic significance. As stated earlier, the Parliament’s role in the field of Foreign Policy had always been eclipsed by the Executive and the military circles. The blurring of boundaries between issues of national & international stature demand a greater participatory role from the Parliament to influence these policies. In fact, the Parliament has the legitimate authority to have its say on such matters which, however, should be limited to ‘soft-core mandating’. Yet there are few hurdles which have not allowed an effective pursuit of desired objectives in this regard. Firstly, the Executive has never allowed these issues to be tabled on the parliament for further debate and discussion right before its ratification. However, under the 18th Constitutional Amendment, the Executive, comprising of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, is collectively responsible to both houses of the parliament. Secondly, we must admit that the realm of foreign policy extends over global audience which is definitely a consuming task for any single individual, in this case a Parliamentarian, to cover without having a prior knowledge of such an issue. Thirdly, the performance of National Assembly Standing Committee on Foreign Policy, established in 2008, has been disappointing till the present time. Even the Committee’s Chair, Asfandyar Wali Khan, attended less than half of the meetings held over these years. Moreover, most of their meeting were held for the sake of meeting hi-profile foreign officials instead of making any real headway towards formulation, resolution and implementation of relevant policies to tackles s issues at hand. For instance, the Committee never held any meeting during the crucial time frame when the case of Raymond Davis was fresh and then the May 2 operation by US Seals, in violation of our territorial sovereignty, was carried out.
Moving on, we must acknowledge a dearth of adequate research facilities available to the Parliamentarians which limit their capacity to effectively participate in a meaningful debate on these issues. The problem is further aggravated by the non-seriousness of members of the concerned Committee, excepting few, as evident from their poor attendance record. Since this Committee is highly prized among the Parliamentarians therefore only the big names get access to its membership. Yet these members are more interested in polishing their constituency politics rather than addressing to the demands of such a privileged position. Also, many issues remain unaddressed on such platform because at most times, the parliamentarians who do want to raise their concerns over a particular matter stay silent in wake of following their Party’s line. Hence, such issues of sensitive nature remain unheeded. Moreover, the practice of keeping track of talks on both the bilateral and multilateral level has never been a norm, which renders such meetings to be a waste of time and resources since their progress cannot be tracked down for future proceedings.