Citizens consume governance directly at the local level; local governments serve as agencies responsible for delivering vital services. However, despite citizens’ repeated demands and over a dozen court verdicts,1 local
governments in Pakistan have remained, at worst, non-existent, at best, patchy, invariably denied adequate resources through the Provincial Finance Commissions. Irrespective of which political party has been in
power, provincial governments have remained reluctant to empower local tiers of government, often perceiving them unnecessarily as rivals for financial resources and political power.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has long recognised that effective, representative and well-resourced local governments are an important measure of the health of a democracy. Drawing on existing
constitutional provisions and international best practices, this policy paper attempts to provide a context for HRCP’s advocacy as well as proposing amendments to Article 140-A of the Constitution, which provides briefly
for local governments as a responsibility of the provinces, but goes no further in terms of what local governments are responsible for and how their scope of responsibilities should be safeguarded—a criticism levied by many political experts.
