Khar, Ahmed & Khan on Constitutional Law and Pakistan

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You might take it for a second.

This is the carrier room.

This is the carrier room here.

This is the carrier room.

Mr. Chairman, the Cabinet for the U.S.

Ambassador to the United Nations.

That's been true for about 10 years now that I think President Kennedy first invented it.

Mr.

Lieutenant?

Captain Paltin?

Isn't it a trope that went back?

Captain Paltin used to leave his office.

Did he take his chair with him?

That's right.

Did he leave his office?

before the administration, his colleagues will often give him his chair.

And I remember sitting here when Secretary McNamara was leaving, and he and Secretary Ross were joking about the chair.

Mr. Ross said that, you know, if you want your chair, don't you?

We'll give it to you.

And there was some jokes about the cost of it.

The General Services Administration would charge the average for the chair.

McNamara said you ought to get a good depreciation on this chair.

Excuse me a moment.

Mr. Ross, would you like some coffee?

No, that would be negative.

So it's a nice, it's a nice gesture.

Yes it is, it's a very nice gesture.

I have a feeling that maybe it's not the chair so much as the carpet underneath that suffers because people tend to get really bogged down in a tough problem.

The Warren spot down there in the right always catches officer worries most.

Governor, do you have your own cabinet within the province of the provincial government?

Is it a large?

It's quite large.

14 minutes.

Do you know what you suffered?

Do you know what they suffered?

At the moment we have in affairs 14 ministers of cabinet rank.

Cabinet chairs.

It varies up and down one or two, depending on who is elevated to the cabinet rank at the moment.

We've also taken parts of our system does not really use the cabinet the way that the parliamentary system of government uses it.

I guess, of course, you're experimenting.

There you will be if you have a constitution with your own form of cabinet.

What we had to do is to break the cabinet down into smaller groups, plus put around various subjects.

For instance, the meeting that just broke up, and here was the meeting of the National Security Council, which would have just the secretaries of the state of defense, and then drawing in the, well, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Director of Central Intelligence,

from time to time Secretary of the Treasury has been involved in this group.

So it's a smaller group part of the cabinet and a group part of Paris and then we'll have another group dealing with a certain aspect of domestic.

As a matter of fact, we have something called the Domestic Council.

And at that very standard, it's sub-capital groups dealing with transportation.

And I think this is, on the domestic side, this is very much in flux at this time.

Still trying to figure out how to do that better.

Yes.

What problems do you anticipate now with your Constitution?

It's not like it was written in the constitution.

It was written in March, and it was written in the constitution.

That's good.

That's the opposition.

We don't have any views on it.

And that's the difficult process.

You have to hear everybody.

You have to try to meet as many concerns as you want.

The main thing is to reach your goal.

And get the Constitution in order, and then people generally accept that as a framework and play by the rules, then you're at least three years.

Would you have separate provincial constitutions here?

Is that not necessary?

If you're included in the .

Okay.

We came here at a difficult spot because I suppose we have 50 different constitutions for each of us.

And each state constitution will have its own unique characters.

Some will have a one-chamber legislature.

Some will have two-chamber legislatures like our federal government.

Some governors will be, some governors can only serve a two-year term of office and cannot succeed themselves.

You can imagine what it would be to go into office for two years and get a grid office and then head out.

You wouldn't even get your first budget through and be implemented and you'd be out of office.

We have a tremendous variety of global governments.

And it's impossible to change any state constitutions.

Great.

But I don't know that I'm appointed by the President.

Chief Minister is elected by the House.

But the Governor wants that done.

What do you have?

I do have a somewhat more centralised position than him.

Well, actually, under the parliamentary system, the governor doesn't exercise any major powers, but he is minister, who is the most important executive official.

The governor really acts as the eyes and ears of the president.

When the parliamentary system is fully in operation, at least even then he operates with the important position.

especially if you have a strong presidential insurmountability.

And then behind the scenes, it influences the decisions of the provisional government, you know, sort of guides them, directs them, supports them, and so on, while maintaining the position of the chief minister as the most important effective leader in the cabinet.

Part of our problem now in that regard is that we have so thoroughly embedded in our tradition the notion of a distinction between local governments and national governments.

And so we even had a civil war that was subject to states' rights, and we settled that in one direction, but there's still certain prerogatives that are very near to the hearts of those who don't want to see too much knowledge centralized against Washington.

a nation of 80 million, or 100 million, or 200 million people.

The tensions that you're going to have are concentrated tension when it comes to the division of power.

And the problem is to establish the framework within which that tension is played out.

Now, I take it that under the Constitution, these states do not have the right to secede.

Some of them thought that under the Constitution they had the right to do that, and then of course you had a civil war to establish that point.

It was a pragmatic determination of the point that you made.

Well, that was a defect to attempt to succeed.

I'm talking of what is the theoretical constitutional position.

Well, there is no direct provision in the Constitution.

Right.

I see.

There's nothing to forbid it to work in progress, not at the time of the problem.

Neither.

I see.

But, you know, the Soviet Union had the Constitution, of course, already given to the people.

One of you took it.

They keep on telling, you know, particularly the other countries, not to impress them, but, you know, our states, our tongue must say, have you the right to succeed?

A lot has been going on.

They all have the right to succeed.

I know.

Democratic Republics.

It's like, what was I discussing with...

The question of religious freedom.

Oh, this is complete religious freedom for everybody.

But also freedom for those who do not believe in religion, to preach their point of view.

It's not actually such an amount of case of intersectionalism.

Those who preach non-religious religion always have the upper hand.

But in theory, everybody has the right to talk religiously.

Now, another point, you see, my impression is that what is known as residual powers, in your constitution, residual powers rest in the front of the United States.

Expression of the constitution.

There are many views that congressional law and the argument are quite strong.

Do you think it's arguable?

Well, they say, not in theory, but they say that in practice, in a way.

So, you see, that's why I found my next point, and that is that if the legitimate power is vested with the states, as I think they do, then if there is no provision in the Constitution, the central Constitution,

It has been proved that the state would assume that under the residuary power, as there are other policies, as there are other types of residuary power.

I would assume that since the intention of the Constitution is to form a union of the signatory states and provide for new states to join these unions very specifically, that the intention of the union is clear enough to be broken out in that way.

I was just wondering whether it would be possible for someone who I knew like that to go out and say, you know, we want to be able to listen very fast to the promises.

I don't think it's a wise step.

We've seen from his articles and there's something that he advises against it.

Do you think he's right?

Certainly, thank you.

Under the draft constitution, the liberty powers are being given to the provinces, and I'm not sure that that's something to do.

Or conversely, if you had a big threat of prohibition, the reason would be to be maintained, and particularly for pay issues, the great campaign, and that would be excluded, and that would be excluded from...

Those powers, those principles.

Yes, but if I could just ask you a question.

Milton's name wasn't changed.

I'm saying, for instance, this is space technology, for instance.

Now, it's not provided in our Constitution that it be a central subject.

Mr. Baskin, are you ready now?

Everybody, listen closely.

I'll see you later tonight.

Khar, Ahmed & Khan on Constitutional Law and Pakistan

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on March 8, 1973

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