This amendment made many changes to Pakistan's constitution. Many of these changes dealt with the office of the President and the reversal of the effects of the Thirteenth Amendment. Summarized here are brief descriptions of the major points. The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan was passed in 1997 by the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. ...
President Musharraf's Legal Framework Order (LFO) was largely incorporated into the constitution, with a few changes.
Article 63(1)(d) of the Constitution to become operative after December 31, 2004. The intent of this was to prohibit a person from holding both a political office (such as that of the President) and an "office of profit" - an office that is typically held by a career government servant, civil or military - such as the office of the Chief of Army Staff. Although this was supposed to separate the two types of office, a loophole - ".. other than an office declared by law .." - allowed Parliament to pass an ordinary law later in 2004 - permitting the President to hold on to the office of Chief of Army Staff, an option that President Musharraf then exercised.
Should the President win a majority in a vote of confidence in the electoral college within 30 days of the passage of this amendment, he shall be deemed to be elected to the office of President. (On January 1, 2004, Musharraf won 658 out of 1,170 electoral-college votes - a 56% majority - and was thereby deemed to be elected as president.)
A Governor's power to dissolve a Provincial Assembly is similarly subject to Supreme Court approval or veto.
Article 152A, which dealt with the National Security Council, was annulled. (The legal basis for the NSC is now an ordinary law, the National Security Council Act of 2004.)
Ten laws had been added by the LFO to the Sixth Schedule, which is a list of "laws that are not to be altered, repealed or amended without the previous sanction of the President." After this amendment, five of those laws will lose their Sixth Schedule protection after six years. Laws to be unprotected include the four laws that established the system of democratic local governments. (Those in favor of this change have argued that it would enable each province to evolve its own systems. Opponents fear that authoritarian provincial governments could disempower or even dismantle the system of local democracies.)
Separation of powers is the idea that the powers of a sovereign government should be split between two or more strongly independent entities, preventing any one person or group from gaining too much power. ... The President of Pakistan is chosen by an electoral college. ... A reserve power is a power that may be exercised by the head of state of a country in certain exceptional circumstances. ... The National Assembly is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Pakistan. ... The Prime Minister of Pakistan is the Head of Government of Pakistan. ... Supreme Court of Pakistan, Islamabad The Supreme Court is the apex court in Pakistans judicial hierarchy, the final arbiter of legal and constitutional disputes. ... The National Security Council is a consultative body that is chaired by the President of Pakistan. ...
This constitution represented a compromise consensus on three issues: the role of Islam; the sharing of power between the federal government and the provinces; and the division of responsibility between the president and the prime minister, with a greatly strengthened position for the latter.
Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan which institutionalized party discipline, diminishing the ability of the legislature to dismiss a Prime Minister by Confidence Voting, especially if the Prime Minister is also the leader of a party that has a majority rather than just a plurality.
SeventeenthAmendment to the Constitution of Pakistan which restored the president's reserve powers, but made them subject to the approval of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
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