Urban Bystander
“Salus populi suprema lex” is a Latin phrase meaning “the welfare of the people is the supreme law.” This legal maxim emphasizes the principle that the safety, health, and well-being of the public should be the highest priority in law and governance.
Mirza knew the algebra of silence. In 1960, his grandfather watched the capital rise. Planners promised the city would soon find its voice. Fifty-five years later, it spoke, briefly, like rain on borrowed clouds, then the silence returned, countersigned and archived.
In 1978 a bureaucrat died mid-audit; his ghost, denied an exit protocol under the Ordinance, lodged in Mirza’s spine. Since then, every impossibility arrived with a reference number.
For five and a half decades, citizens were told to lodge complaints with a body that no longer existed, and pay taxes to offices they could neither question nor remove. The Capital Development Authority, born in 1960 to build the city and step aside, never stepped. Section 49G crowned it immortal: its provisions “shall have effect notwithstanding anything to the contrary.”
Then came November 2015, the miracle. Article 140A of the Constitution had promised elected local governments since 2010. The Supreme Court insisted. The ICT Local Government Act 2015 delivered the capital’s first elections. The Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad was born. A plaque was installed: “Elected Representatives Only.” An optimism in brass.
The newly elected Mayor inherited nine thousand workers whose salaries were paid by loans from the Authority they were meant to replace. He requested office space. It arrived in 2017, two years into his five-year term.
When the Corporation demanded property-tax revenues, the Authority’s response was surgical. It had collected Rs. 4 billion since 2015, taxes legally belonging to the elected body. A committee was formed, met eighteen times, and concluded further study was required. The money was never transferred.
The masterpiece arrived in 2018: the Local Government Commission. Created to “monitor” the Corporation, it was chaired by a ruling party advisor on CDA Affairs.
“Perfect oversight,” Mirza observed. “One pocket auditing the other.”
Between 2019 and 2020, the Commission monitored by dismantling. Departments that took two years to devolve were ordered back within six months.
In May 2020, the Commission recommended the Mayor’s suspension for misuse of resources he never received. The Islamabad High Court reinstated him within weeks: the action was “outside parameters of law.”
The Mayor resigned months later, citing “systematic erosion” of MCI powers. Four of his five years spent fighting to access the office he was elected to hold.
February 2021: MCI’s term expired. Instead of elections, the federal government appointed the Chief Commissioner as Administrator. Democracy, having existed for five years, was administratively dissolved.
Elections were scheduled for December 31, 2022. On December 19, twelve days before voting, the government increased union councils from 101 to 125. Fresh delimitation required. Polls postponed indefinitely.
Four years and nine months have passed.
Shama Shirazi, the reporter who had chronicled every promise and postponement, did the arithmetic in her notebook: sixty-five years of cityhood; five years of democracy; participation 7.7 percent. “How do you end self-rule without declaring it over?” she asked.
“You transfer staff but not budgets,” Mirza replied. “You create a monitoring commission that monitors by dismantling. Democracy doesn’t die here, it matures pending vetting.”
That evening, a file titled “MCI Revenue Transfer, Pending Clarification” completed its 1,847th orbit between two desks.
Shama paused mid-sentence. “Article 140A wants to know if anyone read it.”
“Filed under Beyond Jurisdiction,” Mirza replied. “But beautifully written.”
She continued: “Islamabad waited fifty-five years for its first vote. It got five years of democracy, systematically undone by due process. It has waited four years and nine months for its second.”
Inside, His Dualness’s nameplate rotated from Chairman to Chief Commissioner. The Ordinance whispered its nightly prayer: “notwithstanding anything to the contrary.”
As dawn slid down the Margallas, Mirza rose over Constitution Avenue. Below, the city gleamed, precise, peaceful, voiceless. “You think they’ll vote again?”
“Of course,” said Mirza. “Only the interim is permanent.”
And somewhere in the archives, Section 52 lay waiting, a door marked Exit in a building where everyone prefers the stairs.
The writer can be reached at [email protected]
