Parliamentary System and Framing of the 1973 Constitution: Contest between Government and Opposition inside the National Assembly

It is generally believed that the Constitution of 1973 was passed unanimously by the parliament of Pakistan and was equally acceptable for all the federating units. While studying the processes of the approval of the said constitution inside the assembly, it becomes evident that the reality was quite different. There exists an argument that most of the Opposition members were not allowed to join the parliament’s session while the final approval of the constitution was processed. The present paper is an effort to analyse the developments that took place inside the National Assembly to pass this document which was to serve as the fundamental document of the state system in forthcoming years. In other words, the present article analyses the course of action through which the Constitution was framed. This is an analytical study primarily based on the National Assembly debates supported by the secondary sources, biographies, and autobiographies of the contemporary politicians to understand how far the amendments suggested by the then opposition were accommodated by the ruling party. Furthermore, this paper analyses the reasons for which each government has to amend the basic structure of the constitution to make it more practical and acceptable for its units. For instance the Eighteenth Amendment removed the concurrent list of the constitution but now the following governments are facing issues to implement the Amendment in detail.

A Study of Non-Observance of Gricean Maxims in Females Formal Speech

According to Grice, we must adhere to four maxims i.e. the maxim of quantity, quality, relevance and manner, in our speech. Adherence to these maxims makes a speaker obliged that the information passed by him/her must carry quantity in it i.e. it should be as informative as is required. In quality maxim, the contribution of a speaker should be based on truth and s/he should not say something without having complete knowledge. Lastly, the contribution should be relevant and clear as well (Grice, 1975). Observance of these maxims in cooperative principle is a rational behavior which benefits the participants in conversation (Verschueren, 1999). Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used in the present study to investigate non-observance of Gricean maxims in females’ formal speech and the reasons behind it. For exploring non-observance of quantity, relevance and manner maxims in females’ formal speech formal presentations of females were recorded in national / international conferences and workshops. The results have proved that there is observance of the maxims of relevance and manner however there is non-observance of the quantity maxim in females’ formal speech. Thus, contrary to the common belief that women are more talkative, they spoke less in the formal speech. One can also see close association between age/qualification and observance, for instance, the observance of maxims is higher in older females’ speech as compared to the younger ones. Similarly, females with higher qualification observed the maxims of relevance and manner but flouted the maxim of quantity.