مطالعة تطبيقي قانون اساسي ايران و پاكستان از نظرمباني حقوق شهروندي و تأثير آن برحفظ وحدت ملي

A Comparative Study about Constitution of Iran and Pakistan with Respect to Basic Civil Rights and their Effects on Presentation of National Unity

افراد هر جامعه يا به گفته اي شهروندان هر حكومت، فارغ از هرگونه تفاوت، داراي حقوقي به نام «حقوق شهروندي» هستند. حقوق شهروندي مجموعه امتيازها و اختيارهايي است كه بر عضويت يك فرد در جامعۀ سياسي دلالت مي كند و تحقق آن مستلزم برخورداري از حق احترام برابر، آزادي، امنيت، آسايش، آگاهي و حق پيشرفت است. از آنجاكه قانون اساسي، شيوۀ اعمال حاكميت، شكل حكومت و رژيم سياسي، اختيارها و عملكرد قواي مربوط به حكومت، حقوق مهم و اساسي مردم و نيز، مشاركت شهروندان در اعمال قدرت را از طريق حق رأي يا گزينش آزادانۀ نمايندگان معين مي كند، عالي ترين قانون هر كشور نيز به شمار مي رود كه گذشته از آثار حقوقي، آثار فراحقوقي نيز بر شهروندان خود دارد. از اين رو، قلمرو مفهومي و كاركردي اصول قانون اساسي، مي تواند موجب تدوام، ثبات و بقاي يك جامعۀ سياسي شده و نقش مهمي در ايجاد وحدت ملي ايفا كند كه يكي از مهمترين اهداف حكومت­ها به شمار ميرود. مقالۀ حاضر به روش توصيفي ـ تحليلي، به شيوۀ تطبيقي انجام شده است و هدف، پاسخ به اين پرسش است كه چگونه اصول مربوط به حقوق شهروندي مندرج در قانون اساسي كشورهاي ايران و پاكستان، مي تواند بر وحدت ملي آنها تأثير گذارد. نتايج اين پژوهش نشان مي دهد كه متغير «دين و مذهب» در حقوق شهروندي سه گانۀ مندرج در قانون اساسي ايران، نقش تعيين كننده اي در حفظ وحدت ملي، به ويژه وحدت ديني دارد؛ درحاليكه اين متغير در حقوق شهروندي درج شده در قانون اساسي پاكستان، در كنار اعطاي حق آزادي به همگان (اعم از قومي، مذهبي، فرقه اي و حزبي در انجام اعمال و شعائر خود)، موجب شكاف و برخورد ميان اقشار گوناگون جامعه شده و به جاي وحدت ملي، از قابليت ايجاد انشقاق ملي برخوردار است.

Introduction One of the issues considered by political geographers is the concept of citizenship. Citizenship refers to the relationship between people and government and shows the mutual commitments of both parties. At national level, the constitution of every country can be considered as the main written and theoretical document for defining “citizen rights and responsibilities”. Constitution determines the limits of personal freedom against the function of power in one hand, and specifies the scope of the responsibilities of the governing system in relation to individual rights on the other. The members of society need to observe the rules of constitution. At the same time, citizens of a country are not always similar in terms of ethnicity, language, religion, etc. Hence, the conceptual and functional scope of constitutional laws can play a part in continuity, stability, and survival of a political society, as well as establishing national unity. The present paper investigates how rules of citizenship rights in the constitutions of Iran and Pakistan affect their national unity. To this aim, the citizen rights in the constitutional rules of the two countries are compared, and then, their roles in the national unity of each country are addressed. The reason of selecting Iran and Pakistan for the investigation is similarities of these countries with respect to geographical, political, religious, cultural, and ethnic issues. Methodology The present study is an applied research using comparative descriptive-analytical methodology. The data are collected using library and computer searching. Results and Discussion In this study, the basics of citizen rights in the constitution of Iran and Pakistan are investigated according to Marshal’s classification. Comparison of social citizen rights in the two countries reveals that Iranian constitution tries to create and preserve national unity via “cultural” means in three ways: 1. Promoting official language and writing system (Farsi); 2. Providing free education; and 3. Raising the level of public awareness in all areas. In this way, various groups and classes of people are exposed to consistent information, education, values, and norms to realize national unity. However, regarding religious teachings some exceptions are witnesses which might be due to the Muslim and Shiite majority of the population of this country. These rights in Pakistan are almost similar to Iran; for by emphasizing preservation of writing system, language, culture, and obligatory secondary education, this country tries to keep national unity through cultural means, especially by putting stress on language. Pakistan, regardless of gender, class, religious, and ethnic differences, emphasizes social citizen rights based on meeting the primary needs of life. Nonetheless, in social citizen right of Iran, non-Muslim minorities who are not men of faith are deprived from cultural rights, that is, the variable of “religion” plays a significant role in providing or not providing cultural rights, while in the constitution of Pakistan this issue has been stated regardless of gender, class, ethnicity, and religion. The interesting point is that in social citizen rights of Iran it has been tried to realize national unity by establishing economic justice through mentioning issues like housing right, lack of economic discrimination, and equal distribution of national resources and incomes according to Islamic rules. But these rights are presented as the expansion of social justice, eradication of corruption, and promotion of economic and social welfare in Pakistani constitution. Comparison of civil citizen right in two countries indicates that religion plays a determinative role in these rights in Iran. Like Pakistan, Iran considers Islam as the official religion and the laws follow Islamic rules and regulation. Therefore, in such condition, the freedom of thought and speech is regarded “constitutional”. For instance, non-Muslims who are not men of faith have human rights but not cultural rights. However, the civil citizen rights of Pakistan offering the freedom in performing religious ceremonies provides every citizen with the right of promoting their religion and having religious ceremonies. Thus, freedom of speech is not “constitutional” in this country. At the same time, it is emphasized in Pakistan constitutions that all laws must be Islamic. On the other hand, the constitution of this country “disapproves” but not “legally denies” local, state, tribal, ethnic, and sectarian prejudices among citizens. It appears that issues like religious and sectarian mass murders are the outcomes of such paradoxes. That is to say, freedom of thought and speech together with freedom of prejudices has the potential of threatening national unity. Therefore, it can be argued that the constitution of this country affects exacerbation of religious and sectarian conflicts, and is itself the cause of sectarianism and endangering national unity in this country. Finally, comparing political citizen rights in these two countries shows the influence of Islamic rules and regulations on political citizen rights in Iran. For example, the right of gatherings, demonstrations, protests, and establishing Islamic societies and parties provided that they are not against Islamic rules, and do not deny national freedom and unity as well as Islamic rules and the bases of Islamic republic of Iran; and the membership right of non-Muslims who are not men of faith in societies and parties provided that they are not allowed to establish religious association because it might be against Islamic rules and official religion of the country. It seems that all these considerations about the role of religion in the constitution of Iran are intended for preserving religious unity of the country and preventing the sectarianism and religious conflicts. But in Pakistan, the political citizen rights disregard Islamic rules and regulations, for the right of establishing societies and parties is declared as “unconditional” and “free”. Also, in assigning individuals to governmental systems, no discrimination is made in terms of ethnicity, religion, social class, gender, and place of birth. Conclusion Considering the above-mentioned points, it can be argued that although in the constitution of both countries it has been tried to consider issues preserving national unity, there are disagreements among them. According to the comparisons, the Iranian constitution, more than the constitution of Pakistan has been developed based on the realities of the society and functions more for preserving national unity. In summary, variables such as geographical position, historical experiences, and religion play an important role in developing laws and regulations related to citizen rights in the countries. Efforts are made to prevent any kind of gap in the national unity of the countries.