Constitution of Pakistan (English + Urdu)

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The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Urdu: آئین پاکستان‬), also known as the 1973 Constitution is the supreme law of Pakistan.[1] Drafted by the government of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, with additional assistance from the country's opposition parties, it was approved by the Parliament on 10 April and ratified on 14 August 1973.

The Constitution is intended to guide Pakistan's law and its political culture, and system. It identifies the state (its physical existence and its borders), people and their fundamental rights, state's constitutional law and orders, and also the constitutional structure and establishment of the institutions and the country's armed forces.[3] The first three chapters establish the rules, mandate, and separate powers of the three branches of the government: a bicameral legislature; an executive branch governed by the Prime Minister as chief executive; and an apex federal judiciary headed by Supreme Court.[3] The Constitution designates the President of Pakistan as a ceremonial Head of State who is to represent the unity of the state.[4] The first six articles of the constitution outline the political system as federal parliamentary republic system; as well as Islam as its state religion.[5] The Constitution also encapsulates provisions stipulating the legal system's compliance with Islamic injunctions contained in the Quran and Sunnah.[6]

The Parliament cannot make any laws which may be repugnant or contrary to the Constitution, however the Constitution itself may be amended by a two-thirds majority in both the houses of the bicameral Parliament, unlike the previous legal documents of 1956 and 1962.[7] It has been amended over time, and most recent impulses for political upgrades and reforms has been amended. Although enforced in 1973, Pakistan, however, celebrates the adoption of the constitution on 23 March—when the first set was promulgated in 1956—each and every year as Republic Day

In a radio talk addressed to the people of USA broadcast in February 1948, Jinnah expressed his views regarding Pakistan's constitution to be in the following way:

The Constitution of Pakistan is yet to be framed by the Pakistan Constituent Assembly, I do not know what the ultimate shape of the constitution is going to be, but I am sure that it will be of a democratic type, embodying the essential principles of Islam. Today these are as applicable in actual life as these were 1300 years ago. Islam and its idealism have taught us democracy. It has taught equality of man, justice and fair play to everybody. We are the inheritors of these glorious traditions and are fully alive to our responsibilities and obligations as framers of the future constitution of Pakistan.

[9]

Pakistan was founded in 1947. Before writing a constitution, a Constituent Assembly passed the Objectives Resolution, on the insistence of the ulama and Jamaat-e-Islami, in March 1949 to define the basic directive principles of the new state and to declare state recognition of the sovereignty of Allah over the universe. The Objectives Resolution affirmed the role of democracy and contained religious provisions to enable society to adhere to the teachings of the Quran and Sunnah. The Objectives Resolution has henceforth been inserted as a preamble into each of Pakistan's subsequent constitutions.

The country's first constitution was approved in 1956 but abrogated in 1958 after a military Coup d'état. Pakistan's second constitution was approved in 1962. It granted executive power to the president and abolished the office of the prime minister. It also institutionalised the intervention of military in politics by providing that for twenty years, the president or the defence minister must be a person who had held a rank not lower than that of lieutenant-general in the army. The 1962 constitution was suspended in 1969 and abrogated in 1972.

Last update

March 20, 2020

Constitution of Pakistan (English + Urdu)

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