ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN: The Hanns Seidel Foundation (HSF) in collaboration with the National Assembly of Pakistan and National Dialogue Forum (NDF) organized a roundtable dialogue: “Parliamentary Diplomacy as a Tool of Strengthening Democratic Institutions,” in the National Assembly of Pakistan on 23rd November 2022.
Member of the National Assembly (MNA), Syed Ali Musa Gillani, President of the Young Parliamentary Forum (YPF) said that keeping in context the substantial young population, YPF has become an effective tool to further the cause of strengthening democratic norms in the country. He also said that YPF has become a platform where young Parliamentarians can legislate especially for youth and it can be an effective tool to strengthen democratic institutions.
Dr. Steffen Kudella, Resident Representative, HSF Pakistan office said that HSF supports parliamentary work worldwide, through administrative modernization, political dialogue, and good governance among other important areas. He hoped that the planned sessions, as part of this event, on parliamentary cooperation on climate change and adaptation, social media misinformation and fake news, legislative capacity building, and common challenges and opportunities faced by young parliamentarians in South Asia and Europe, would be interesting for the participants to have an in-depth and interactive discussion on.
Syed Shamoon Hashmi, Additional Secretary, National Assembly briefed the participants regarding the goals of YPF and its importance to support legislative initiatives in Parliament. He also briefed the participants regarding the need of developing tangible goals for YPF.
Sheharyar Khan, Executive Director NDF said that the YPF serves as a forum for lawmakers to interact with one another, and deepen their understanding of and contribution to the operations of the Parliament. It serves as a platform for young legislators to interact with Pakistan's youth and use Parliament to address their needs.
Ms. Sarah Hyat carried out the a session on “Parliamentary cooperation on climate change and adaptation in wake of the recent flood situation in Pakistan”. She presented a critical appraisal of the post-flood relief works in Pakistan by taking stock of the ground realities combined with a natural scientific explanation of the climate disaster. The purpose, as Ms. Hayat outlined, was "to facilitate parliamentarians’ efforts to lead rehabilitation in their constituencies for building back resilient lifestyle and infrastructure.” She also shared anecdotes of women from her post-flood fieldwork, thus impressing upon the lawmakers to be sensitive to gender-specific needs. Major themes covered in her presentation included the unprecedented nature of Monsoon 2022, the potential of such floods becoming a more frequent occurrence due to climate change, and the need for “proactive” policymaking in Pakistan given the establishment and imminent operationalization of the Loss and Damage Fund.
Key takeaways from the first session included:
- The need for efforts to bring transparency in post-flood relief actions,
- Increased cooperation between the disaster relief institutions and the Parliament, and
- During the upcoming parlays with the German Parliament, YPF to showcase a national stance by building upon Pakistan’s official position on Climate Justice at the COP 27.
The second session was facilitated by Mr. Asad Baig, Executive Director of Media Matters for Democracy, who discussed social media misinformation and fake news (& its management). He opened the session by shedding light on “What are we up against?” In his informed opinion, information disorder poses one of the gravest dangers to human society in the 21st century. To support his claim, he shared his research on the war of hashtags on social media, images generated through deepfake, and lynchings inspired by disinformation. Mr. Baig introduced the participants to the concept of malinformation, which alongside misinformation and disinformation forms the triad of fake news. Mr. Baig also stressed the need to understand the political economy of fake news, pulling examples from the recent social media campaigns against Pakistani state institutions. “It would be naïve to think there’s no political economy of misinformation” he stated. Finally, he put forth several recommendations and focus areas for the consideration of young lawmakers:
- The need to revamp the policy measures to make consumers the subject, and secure their interaction with information through inculcating critical thinking skills,
- The creation of privacy laws,
- Accountability of social media platforms for user data protection,
- Reforms in civil defamation laws,
- Reforms in hate crime laws,
- Educating the youth on Media & Information Laws by inculcating it in curriculums, and
- Effective implementation of present laws rather than making yet another law.
Mr. Zafar Ullah Khan, Former Executive Director Pakistan Institute of Parliamentary Services (PIPS) facilitated the third session. According to the data shared by him, 38 of the current MNAs are from an agricultural background, 25 are entrepreneurs, 40 hold a BA/BSc/BBA, 25 hold an MSc/MBA, 15 are from LLM background, whereas there are 4 MPhil scholars. This was a record in Pakistan’s Parliamentary history, he said, stating: “It was the youngest parliament in terms of age compared to the previous parliaments.” Mr. Khan pointed out that 203 of the current 740 laws in Pakistan’s statute are a legacy of the colonial state. In addition, 230 of the current laws were conceived as ordinances in the days of martial law, and later turned to parliamentary legislation by rubber stamp parliaments. “Most of these laws highly affect our sociology, for instance, the Tax Laws (2001) and NRO (1999) were passed during the Martial Law days,” he said, adding that not much has been done to reform laws as was decided by the 1973 Constituent Assembly. He opined the need for a grand constitutional/legal review is needed to reform these colonial and disruptive laws and remove the current dichotomies in laws and the justice system.
You may find training photos at https://twitter.com/HSF_Pakistan. For more information on HSF Pakistan, please visit https://pakistan.hss.de. Press contact: islamabad(at).hss.de