Tariq Mahmood Awan
Federalism is a simple idea, yet in Pakistan it has become a complicated debate, and the reason is clear, because we talk about federalism without understanding its three basic pillars, legislative power, fiscal power, and executive power. A federation only functions when all three work together, and when the distribution of power is real and not symbolic. Federalism is the sharing of authority between the federation and its federal units, and these units may be called provinces or states or cantons, but the essence does not change, because the identity and cultural space of the units matter as much as political power. In Pakistan, it is the provinces that create the federation, and this constitutional truth must be acknowledged in both spirit and practice.
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The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and it draws its strength from national political consensus, and although many may critique parts of it, the fact remains that it is the applicable law and must guide state machinery. Article 1 declares Pakistan a federal republic, and this means that legislative, fiscal, and executive powers must be divided between the federation and the provinces. Out of these three, legislative federalism is the core, because the executive always draws authority from laws passed by the legislature, and without legislative power the executive is hollow, and without executive enforcement the legislature is weak, so the relationship is organic.
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Judicial federalism also exists, and many scholars have written about it, including Senator Zamir Ghumroh, who argues that higher courts, especially the Supreme Court, hold exclusive powers in constitutional disputes, and that these powers shape the balance between centre and provinces. The Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction over federal provincial disputes is one example of how judicial federalism operates, but this article focuses on the executive dimension because this is where the real anomaly lies, and this is where Pakistan’s federal structure fails in practice.
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Executive federalism, or administrative federalism, means that the executive authority of the federation must be exercised by the federal executive, and the executive authority of a province must be exercised by the provincial executive, both political and bureaucratic. The executive cannot exist independently of the legislature, so if a province has legislative powers, it must have its own executive structure to implement those laws. This includes political leadership and bureaucratic machinery, and without both the province remains dependent, and dependency in a federal system weakens the federation itself.
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In Pakistan, however, the picture is completely different, because a unitary executive runs the provinces, even though legislative and fiscal powers reflect federalism. Provincial autonomy is incomplete when the executive instruments remain centralised. PAS officers, PSP officers, chief secretaries, inspector generals, accountant general offices, these are federal cadres posted in provinces, and they operate under federal control even when they are physically serving provincial governments. This creates a unitary bureaucracy inside a federal constitutional design, and this contradiction disturbs the natural working of federalism.
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This mismatch raises a fundamental question, how can legislative and fiscal federalism stand when executive federalism collapses, and how can provinces exercise their constitutional powers when they lack their own executive backbone. A province may pass laws, but if its bureaucracy is not provincial, the implementation remains in the hands of federal officers, and this distorts accountability, efficiency, and autonomy. Political executives at the provincial level then depend on a federalised administrative system, and the result is a hybrid model that is neither federal nor unitary, and this confusion produces friction in governance.
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The spirit of the Constitution demands that provinces must manage their own administrative structures, including police, accounts, and general administration. Yet, even after the Eighteenth Amendment, the federal services continue to dominate provincial working. This has produced a dysfunctional power equation, because the province remains responsible for law and order, development, and service delivery, but the control of bureaucratic apparatus is shared with or influenced by the federation. This weakens the idea of Pakistani federalism, and without correction the federation itself becomes unstable, because a federation grows strong only when its units are strong.
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The solution lies in recognising the anomaly and correcting it with constitutional and administrative reforms, and this requires courage, clarity, and vision. Provinces must be allowed full control over their executive machinery, both political and bureaucratic, and provincial services must be strengthened to replace the dependence on federal cadres. This does not mean weakening the federation, and it means strengthening it, because a strong federation is built on empowered provinces, not on controlled provinces. Pakistan needs a model where legislative, fiscal, and executive federalism work together without contradiction, and without a unitary executive distorting provincial mandate. Only then will the promises of Article 1 and the federal character of the Constitution be fulfilled, and only then will Pakistan function as a true federation. Provincial autonomy is not a threat to national unity, and administrative federalism is not a concession, it is a constitutional obligation. Until this structural flaw is resolved, federalism in Pakistan will remain incomplete and the federation will remain imbalanced.
