Editorial
In a parliamentary democracy, the legislature is not one branch among equals. It is the foundation upon which every other institution stands. The executive governs because the legislature permits it. The bureaucracy functions because the legislature funds it. The police operate because the legislature enacted the laws that created them. This is constitutional design, not political preference.
The confusion begins with a false idea of institutional independence. Civil servants and police officers speak of their autonomy as though it were a shield against accountability. It is not. Operational independence in professional conduct is a legitimate principle. But every public officer remains fully answerable to the legislature for how authority was exercised, how public funds were spent, and how the law was upheld. Conflating the two is an old bureaucratic habit designed to place the executive beyond democratic reach.
The Chief Minister himself is the clearest illustration of this reality. He governs not because he commands the bureaucracy or controls the police. He governs because the assembly chose to extend its confidence to him. The moment that confidence is withdrawn, every power he holds evaporates. To speak of executive independence from the legislature is, in a parliamentary system, constitutionally incoherent.
The real failure in Punjab’s governance has not been an overreaching legislature. It has been precisely the opposite. For decades, the assembly sat as a ceremonial body while the executive governed without genuine accountability. The legislature allowed this because it did not assert what the constitution already gave it.
A legislature that cannot hold the executive to account is not a legislature at all. Legislative supremacy means that no public institution stands outside the constitutional order. The constitution does not leave this as an option. It establishes it as the order of things. The legislature is supreme. It is past time the executive governed accordingly.
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