In all democratic countries, standing committees are considered vital for promoting democratic culture, ensuring accountability and suggesting progressive recommendations on any particular issue to the Parliament.
The purpose of forming any such body is to focus on one particular issue at a time.
Pakistan, like all other parliamentary countries, has standing committees in both houses of the parliament.
In Pakistan too, the standing committees include the members from both treasury and opposition benches, which in itself is a step forward towards participatory democracy.
One can imagine how seriously these standing committees take up issues of urgent importance by looking at an example of a standing committee that focused on discussing the push-ups of Pakistan’s cricket team.
Not a single committee on these respective areas has come up with a comprehensive plan to find some solution for the abovementioned problems.
But, it can also be argued that the poor performance of our legislative members and visionless leadership has further deteriorated the state’s performance in all public sectors.
Political stability has returned to Pakistan now.
The parliament should ask these bodies to function as per their objective; ie, legislative oversight.
In this regard, clear and proper rules and procedures should be devised – starting with compulsory attendance for lawmakers and regular meetings of standing committees.