Nathaniel
Pakistan's Minister of Information announces a phone hotline to encourage information sharing between government and journalists. While not a radical step, this a welcome warming sign in a country that banned the broadcast of information "against the armed forces and judiciary" under its previous government. Minister Sherry Rehman says those days are over.
Daily Times:Talking about the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA), Sherry said the government would not use this body to control the private TV channels.
She said soon after assuming her office as information minister she had deleted the code of conduct mentioned in the PEMRA Ordinance. However, she asked journalists to devise a code of conduct for themselves.
She said the government would legislate on issues related to the media only after consulting journalists and media stakeholders since it wanted all aboard in the decision-making process.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Pakistan Launches Info Hotline for Journalists
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Pakistani Judges Resist Military Rule
Regarding the military in Pakistan, a Global Integrity contributor writes: “…the power of the military has transformed Pakistani society, in which the armed forces have become an independent class, entrenched in the corporate sector, thus, controlling major assets of Pakistan. The military has a strong control over the financial institutions of Pakistan and therefore takes most of Pakistan’s national budget and enjoy luxuries by spending national resources.”
But there is resistance to this power, in the form of a judiciary that is fighting for the rule of law and the constitution. In this article, Global Integrity looks into the expansion of military rule in Pakistan, and the forces that work to counter it. Pakistani Judges Resist Military Rule
By Global Integrity staff, based on the Global Integrity Report: Pakistan
Pakistan has been under military rule ever since General Pervez Musharraf ousted previous Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in October of 1999. In the years following the coup, which Musharraf often justified by promising to clean up the corruption of the former regime, Musharraf named himself President while remaining head of the army and granted himself new powers including the right to dismiss an elected parliament. Most recently, in March 2007, Musharraf suspended Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudry for challenging corruption within the government.
Pakistan is of key interest to the United States because of its geographical proximity to Afghanistan and Pakistan’s history of battling radical Islamic extremists within its own borders. The United States Senate recently approved an aid package to Pakistan worth $785 million, $300 million of which was earmarked for counter terrorism security assistance. Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks Pakistan has become one of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid.
The primary finding of the assessment is that while executive and legislative accountability are weak in Pakistan, the judiciary has remained independent from the government and is effective in upholding the rule of law. Media, Law Enforcement and the Civil Service, however, are rated as “Weak” and “Very Weak.”
The detailed findings of the study that are described immediately below and are depicted in the graphic that follows reflect the ratings given to Pakistan on 23 categories of good governance, government accountability and anti-corruption indicators. Those categories comprise more than 300 specific questions scored by our in-country team.
The detailed findings, which led to previous conclusions about the weakness of executive and legislative accountability along with media and law enforcement, are presented below.
Key Findings of the Global Integrity Report: Pakistan
>> 12 out of 23 (or 52%) of the government accountability and anti-corruption sub categories for Pakistan earned “Weak” or “Very Weak” ratings. The country earned “Strong” or “Very Strong” ratings for just 3 of the 23 categories assessed (13%) compared to an international average of 31%.
>> Of the 55 countries assessed in the Global Integrity Report: 2007, Pakistan had the fourth largest gap between having anti-corruption laws on the books and actual implementation. This points towards a lack of political will and leadership in enforcing existing anti-corruption safeguards.
>> Judicial Accountability was assessed as “Moderate” and reflected the judiciary’s efforts to stand up for constitutionalism when the military attempted to control its functioning and decisions.
>> The military’s lack of tolerance for dissent earned Pakistan a ”Weak” rating for Media in the Global Integrity Index: 2007. Musharraf’s suspension of Chief Justice Chaudhry, in March 2007, triggered a wave of protests that were broadcasted on television, the internet and mobile phones along with critical assessments of the current government. In response, Musharraf deepened existing controls over media to “… prohibit the broadcast of programs ‘against the armed forces’ ” (Global Integrity Report: Pakistan 2007: Timeline).
>> The Global Integrity Report: 2007 assesses Pakistani law enforcement agencies as highly ineffective. Law enforcement agency appointments are not made according to professional criteria and are subject to political interference leading to a “Very Weak” rating.
>> Pakistan earns a “Very Weak” rating for civil service regulations because of its complete lack of regulations governing gifts and hospitality to civil servants (tying Pakistan with its poorer neighbors Nepal and Bangladesh).
Global Integrity's Conclusions
According to Global Integrity’s rating of Pakistan’s institutions and accountability mechanisms previous analyses have concluded that the Pakistan’s governance problems lie mainly in weak civil service, executive and legislative accountability along with poor law enforcement and weak media.
Pakistan’s chances of putting into place effective anti-corruption mechanisms now rests on the country’s ability to rid itself of military rule. Successful and clean elections, should they occur, are necessary but insufficient to ensure long-term governance reform, since Pakistan suffered from poor governance even when it was a democratic state prior to Musharraf’s coup.
Lifting restraints on media, guaranteeing judicial independence from the executive branch, and permitting freedom of association can, however, prove to be important initial steps towards a more effective anti-corruption system in Pakistan.
Image: Steve Evans (cc)
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Clean Elections No Guarantee of Strong Democratic Society
New Report Assesses Anti-Corruption Mechanisms and Government Accountability in 55 Countries, Including First Investigation of
(Washington D.C.) – Although elections are often touted as the linchpin of governance reform efforts around the world, a new report finds long-term benefits offered by elections are often undermined by a lack of government accountability and the absence of strong anti-corruption mechanisms. The report, a major investigative study of 55 countries, was released today by Global Integrity, an international nonprofit organization that tracks global governance and corruption trends.
“We have to stop using elections as a simplistic litmus test for a government’s commitment to democracy,” said Global Integrity’s Managing Director Nathaniel Heller. “We now know there is little linkage between elections and the much tougher reforms that must be made, especially in countries at political crossroads such as Pakistan, Ukraine, Georgia, and Kenya.”
The Global Integrity Report: 2007 covers most of the Group of 8 (G8) countries as well as dozens of the world’s emerging markets and developing nations, from Argentina to China to Zambia. Rather than try and measure corruption directly, the report investigates and assesses the government accountability mechanisms and transparency measures needed to prevent corruption and promote good governance.
Many of the findings of the report should be sobering for policy makers and investors alike. The weaknesses found in China’s anti-corruption framework, for example, raise questions as to the true risks facing investors rushing to capitalize on the country’s economic boom– and to the risks Chinese investment funds pose to Western markets. “China’s lack of strong anti-corruption mechanisms could soon be to foreign investment what subprime mortgages have been to the U.S. economy,” stated Heller. “The message from our report to investors should sound a lot like ‘buyer beware’.”
Other major findings of the report include the following:
· The US and other G8 countries suffer from many of the same corruption challenges as developing countries, especially in election and campaign financing. While many observers tend to assume that wealthier countries have developed to a point where corruption is no longer a problem, Global Integrity’s 2007 data for the United States, France, Italy, Japan, and Canada paints a decidedly different picture.
· Despite the conventional wisdom that changes in governance and anti-corruption performance take many years to manifest themselves, several countries exhibited significant improvements or backsliding from 2006 to 2007. The biggest gainers in the past year were Bulgaria, Nepal and Azerbaijan; Nigeria and Georgia were the countries that experienced the greatest declines.
· Poor ratings for several close allies of the United States highlight the challenges the U.S. faces in promoting democratic reforms in countries where it has competing security interests. The report found that countries like Pakistan and Georgia posted ‘weak’ or ‘very weak’ ratings for many of the anti-corruption, accountability and transparency indicators.
· A widespread lack of government accountability among foreign aid recipients presents serious dilemmas for Western and multilateral aid agencies. Despite a growing awareness by aid donors of the need to direct aid to non-governmental stakeholders, like civil society groups, aid agencies continue working primarily with the very same executive branches that are often hindering democratic reforms.
“This report should be a roadmap for change and a wake-up call to policy makers, investors, and aid donors around the globe,” said Global Integrity’s International Director, Marianne Camerer. “It’s also a take-action toolkit for public officials and citizens who want to fight corruption and increase government accountability.”
The report is the product of months of on-the-ground reporting and data gathering by a team of more than 250 in-country journalists and researchers who prepared more than a million words of text and 20,000 data points for their respective countries. Twenty-four countries were repeated from Global Integrity’s 2006 assessments, while 31 were newly assessed.
To access the Global Integrity Report: 2007, please visit http://report.globalintegrity.org. For more information about the organization, visit http://www.globalintegrity.org. Global Integrity is an independent, non-profit organization tracking governance and corruption trends around the world. Global Integrity works with local teams of researchers and journalists to monitor openness and accountability. Its data and reporting are used routinely by aid donors, governments, grassroots advocates, and investors to prioritize governance challenges in countries and develop roadmaps for reform.
Global Integrity is grateful to the Legatum Institute for Global Development ( www.ligd.org) for its continued support of Global Integrity’s work. LIGD is an independent policy, advocacy and advisory organisation within the Legatum group of companies (www.legatum.com). The Institute’s mission is to research and promote those principles that drive the creation of global prosperity and the expansion of human liberty and well-being, including the rule of law, transparency, and accountable government as the pillars of a prosperous and free society. Other supporters of the Global Integrity Report: 2007 were the Australian Agency for International Development, the Wallace Global Fund, and the World Bank.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
The Limits of U.S. Litmus Tests in Pakistan
Internally here at Global Integrity, we've been deeply engaged in a discussion about Western countries' use of clean elections as a litmus test for "democracy" or "governance." The current debate over the direction of U.S. policy in Pakistan, captured nicely by the Washington Post today, demonstrates the limits of such an approach.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Bhutto Assasinated
Regardless of your personal views of the controversial former Pakistani prime minister, it's hard not to view this as another blow to democratic consolidation in the troubled South Asian nation.
Coverage:
Reuters
New York Times
The Guardian
UPI
Dawn (leading English-language daily in Pakistan)