I.A. Rehman
THE Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services is an extremely useful institution created to assist members of parliament in the performance of their august tasks.
Among other things the institute publishes a magazine,
Parliamentary Research Digest, which offers lawmakers rich material for study and absorption. The latest (December 2020) issue of the journal contains a discussion on the ‘IPU’s [Inter-Parliamentary Union] best practices on parliament and democracy in the 21st century’, that Pakistan’s parliamentarians will at least find interesting, notwithstanding the prime minister’s confirmation of his contempt for democracy that one had suspected all along.
The IPU defines five features that a modern democratic parliament must possess. Such a parliament should be: