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Pakistan - Constitution

The constitution in force at the time of the October 1999 coup was promulgated in 1973. The first amendment was introduced in 1974 and the fourteenth, in 1997. Much of it was suspended from 1977 and restored in December 1985. It was again suspended by the military government after the October 1999 coup, and was partially restored in November 2002, following the parliamentary elections.

The constitution proclaims Pakistan to be Islamic and democratic, with fundamental rights guaranteed, including the freedoms of thought, speech, religion and worship, assembly, association, and the press, as well as equality of status.

Under this constitution, the president is head of state and is elected for five years by an electoral college consisting of the members of both houses of parliament and of the four provincial assemblies. Until April 1997, the president had certain discretionary powers including the power to dissolve the National Assembly. These powers were restored by the military government immediately before the elections in October 2002 through the Legal Framework Order (LFO) together with other amendments.

There is a bicameral legislature. The lower house is the National Assembly. Until the introduction of the LFO in August 2002, it had 217 directly elected members who served for five years, including 10 from minorities. For the October 2002 elections the Assembly was increased to 342 seats, including 60 seats reserved for women and 10 for representatives of minorities (non-Muslims), both of which are allocated proportionally to all parties gaining more than 5% of the directly elected seats. The prime minister is elected by the National Assembly. The upper house, the Senate, has 100 members (previously 87) elected for six years with about half of them retiring every three years. Each of the four provinces elects 22 senators, including four women and four technocrats; the remaining 12 are elected from the Federal Capital Territory and the tribal areas. Legal constitutional change requires the support of two-thirds of the total membership of the National Assembly and the Senate.