LAHORE: Justice Atir Mahmood of the Lahore High Court (LHC) Monday dismissed a petition seeking directives to establish a ‘shadow cabinet’ to eliminate corruption from the country.
AK Dogar of the Lawyers’ Foundation for Justice had filed the petition. He contended that establishment of a shadow cabinet in a parliamentary system of government is a well-known fact.
He submitted that the shadow cabinet cold made role of opposition effective. He pointed out that the British parliamentary system, “mother of all parliamentary government of the world”, had a shadow cabinet and this format had been followed by a number of other countries, including Canada and Japan.
He said that the shadow cabinet system was very useful, as it could scrutinise and examine all the activities of ministries and had full access to the record of every case.
He said the system of shadow cabinet was the first step towards the accountability, and it could help curb corruption at the first stage.
He requested the court to direct federal and provincial governments to act upon constitutional requirements of cabinet system and direct opposition leader to appoint a shadow cabinet, and assign functions to establish system of checks to eradicate corruption.
Counsel for Opposition Leader in the Punjab Assembly Mian Mahmoodur Rashid Sheraz Zaka argued that there should be a shadow cabinet, as it would enhance accountability and transparency. He said that Punjab was a big province and the opposition leader alone could not keep check and balance on the government.
He, however, said that although there was no explicit provision of shadow cabinet, the court can direct to legislate on such public importance issues. Sheraz Zaka said that the issues had been raised several times in the House to amendments the Assembly Rules 1997, but no amendment had been made, and the opposition was left with no option but to seek the court’s help as it did not enjoy the majority in the House.
An additional advocate general argued that the government had been performing phenomenally, and there was no need of a shadow cabinet.
