A presidential cabinet?

THE honourable judges of the Supreme Court including the chief justice of Pakistan made a number of hard-hitting comments during the recent (April-May 2020) proceedings of the suo motu case regarding the fight against the coronavirus in Pakistan. Two of these comments were specifically about the size and make-up of Prime Minister Imran Khan`s cabinet which were widely reported in the print and electronic media.

The honourable chief justice observed that the size of the cabinet was too large and even a 10-member cabinet was enough to run government affairs.

The Constitution of Pakistan, after the passage of the 18th Amendment, had set a ceiling on the size of the cabinet to not exceed 11 per cent of the total strength of parliament which translates into 49.

Prime Minister Imran Khan`s cabinet had 29 members including 25 ministers and four ministers of state at the time of this observation. This number has since increased to 30. Although one can argue on the merits of a smaller cabinet, the prime minister seems to be well under the constitutional ceiling.

The size of Imran Khan`s current cabinet 29 happens to be exactly equal to the average of the 50 cabinets Pakistan has seen since 1947. The largest among these cabinets was led by Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani of the PPP and had 75 ministers and ministers of state in 2008 while the smallest under a democratic dispensation was that of president Zulfikar Ali Bhutto which had 12 members from December 1971 to May 1972.

But where the Supreme Court hit the target was in its comment about the high proportion of unelected members in the prime minister`s `extended` cabinet. Although the constitutional definition of the cabinet includes ministers and ministers of state only, advisers and special assistants are traditionally considered part of the `extended` cabinet.

While the ministers and ministers of state are elected members of one of the two houses of parliament, advisers and special assistants are generally unelected, and this was what the Supreme Court judges were referring to.

Currently, the prime minister has five adviserswhich is the maximum number allowed in the Constitution. In addition, there are 15 special assistants for which there is no explicit provision in the Constitution. But it has become increasingly fashionable to have special assistants to the prime minister since the adoption of the 18th Amendment.

Some feel that special assistants are appointed to circumvent the ceiling on the...