IN 1868, Iowa Supreme Court Judge John F. Dillon articulated America`s legal doctrine on local government Dillon`s rule that `Municipal corporations owe their origin to, and derive their powers ... wholly from the state (provincial) legislature.... As it creates, so may it destroy. If it may destroy, it may abridge and control.` By contrast in 1871, the Michigan Supreme Court Judge Thomas M.

Cooley articulated the Cooley Doctrine that `[L]ocal government is a matter of absolute right and the state cannot take it away.

The matter in Lahore`s Signal-Free Corridor case is whether there are any limitations on provincial legislatures assigning enacted local government functions to provincial development authorities. The case will establish our constitutional doctrine on local government, an issue that is as unsettled today in Pakistan as it was in late 19th-century America.

This case is about whether Pakistan`s democratic local governments should be assigned a core set of functions that enable them to act as meaningful institutions of self-government.

The Supreme Court`s view in appeal will determine the future of Pakistan`s federalism.

Historically, provincial governments have taken Justice Dillon`s words to heart that local governments are `mere tenants-at-will of their respective state legislatures`. The Lahore High Court full bench in the SignalFree case (2015) has, in contrast, ruled that local governments are constitutionally protected institutions of self-government. These questions are important because it is well established that political institutions and not the magnitude of infrastructural spending per se is a fundamental determinant of development. Equating development narrowly with the building of roads is to indulge in Machiavellian obfuscation.

Local democratic institutions are essential for strengthening national democracy. In many contexts, national political parties have used local democracy to provide strong foundations for national democracy by strengthening their grass-roots ties and deepening the pool of political leadership. Prominent examples include the Workers Party in Brazil and the Justice Party in Turkey. Mr Erdogan`s strong grass-roots ties, a consequence of local governments, provided the most effective shield against military adventurism.

It is vital that the leadership of political parties realises the political dividends of building strong grass-roots ties through local democracy. Their own experience reveals that the political costs of weak grass-roots ties are exorbitant. One would imagine that this lesson has been learnt. If not, Prof Przeworski`s research on new democracies flashes a warning that half fail within 10 years and revert to a non-democratic form.

The reference point for the debate isArticle 140-A of the Constitution. The article was originally enacted in Gen Musharraf`s regime. Its express purpose was to provide constitutional protection to the LGO (2001).

The fact that the framers of the 18th Amendment retained this article when they purged many others from the same period tells us that our parliamentarians chose to establish the principle of `constitutional protection` for local governments.

They also committed to the `devolution` of `political, administrative and financial responsibility to the elected representatives of local government` (Article 140-A). Item 10 of the Charter of Democracy, the magna carta underlying the 18th Amendment, clarifies the notion of devolution that the framers of the Amendment had in mind: `...constitutional protection will be given to the local bodies to make them autonomous and answerable to their respective assemblies as well as to the people`. This interpretation has been upheld by the honourable Supreme Court inRaja Rabnawaz versus GOP. Therefore, ourparliamentarians and courts have recognised these governments as institutions of self-government.

The PML-N`s 2013 manifesto concurs: `the imperative of democratic governance can be fulfilled only through further decentralisation by devolving administrative and financialpowers to elected representatives at district and lower levels`. However, to act as meaningful institutions of self-government they have to be assigned a set of core functions by consensus that the province hav ing enacted must not abridge. I n comparable international jurisdictions these are municipal functions. Any endeavour to strip these institutions of core municipal functions is to truncate them; to truncate them is to take away their breath of life, which will diminish the political rights of the citizenry.

In short, our parliamentarians have spoken and enacted the principle of constitutiona119 protected democratic local self-government.

Ironically, the provincial government`s submission that Article 140-A doesn`t place any limitation on provincial control over local functions is akin to Dillon`s rule that `our local governments are their tenants-at-will` They would be wise to take heed from Dillon`s own words to US state legislators that truncating local governments would be `so great a folly and so great a wrong`.• This article draws on the written submission made by the writer as amicus curiae in the case.

A longer version is available on Dawn`s website.