The bill suggests that because of the sensitivity of the region, it could gain provisional provincial status by amending Article 1 of the constitution, which deals with provinces and territories, the sources said. Gilgit-Baltistan (United Kingdom), the northern region of Pakistan, connects Pakistan to China and is the starting point of the highly acclaimed China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) on the Pakistani side. Although the region has been virtually under Pakistan`s administrative control since 1947, its constitutional status is suspended due to its legal connection to the long-standing dispute between India and Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir. ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Justice and Justice has finalized the bill to grant provisional provincial status to the strategically located Gilgit-Baltistan (United Kingdom). A group of Pakistani senators have introduced a bill in the upper house of parliament to grant provincial status to the Gilgit-Baltistan region, of which India has repeatedly referred to as an integral part. Last year, all political parties reportedly agreed to provisional provincial status after the elections in Britain. The bill has been discussed with affected individuals in the UK and AJK. The government should once again rally the opposition to this important step so that the amendment can be adopted unanimously. This issue should take precedence over party politics, and all political interest groups should take responsibility for it.

However, care must be taken to ensure that the text of the amendment is legally watertight and does not dilute Pakistan`s position on Kashmir. It may therefore be desirable to have the law revised by international legal experts as well as by diplomats who will have to defend it in the event of a challenge from foreign forums. The amendment should also be thoroughly debated in Parliament and in all public forums before being voted on and adopted. New Delhi, which has claimed that Gilgit-Baltistan is an integral part of India “because of Jammu and Kashmir`s legal, full and irrevocable accession to the Indian Union in 1947,” has yet to respond to the latest report, but is sure to do so. The region`s strategic importance to India has increased given the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor agreement, under which Beijing is investing heavily in the region`s development under its Belt and Road Initiative, and concerns about a two-front war after last year`s standoff in eastern Ladakh. [7] Caylee Hong, “Law and Liminality in Gilgit-Baltistan: Managing Natural Resources in Constitutional Limbo” uses the concept of “liminality” in an anthropological sense. I have relied on this to argue that the political-legal transitions in the recognition of various states of Gilgit-Baltistan have their “indefinite” and vague status. India asserts that the Pakistani government or its judiciary has no right to prosecute areas it occupies illegally and by force. There are also political challenges. In the past, any move to grant interim provincial status in Britain has always received a backlash from the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) government, which claims that the former is an integral part of Kashmir and that any change in its status will affect Pakistan`s fall at the United Nations. Therefore, it is important to trust all Kashmiri leaders on both sides of the Line of Control (LoC).

Finally, granting de facto provincial status is likely to provoke a massive backlash from India, which has repeatedly claimed the territory in the recent past and threatened to seize it by force. If passed by Parliament, the Constitutional Amendment Bill will meet some of the constitutional demands of the British people and bring about three major changes. Firstly, it will allow the British to be represented in Parliament. Second, the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of Pakistan can be extended to Great Britain after the abolition of its Supreme Court of Appeal. Thirdly, the Electoral Commission of the United Kingdom will be merged with the Electoral Commission of Pakistan. Interim provincial status may not address all public concerns demanding rights similar to those in other provinces, such as the transfer of administrative, financial and legislative powers under the 18th Amendment. Nevertheless, it will be a first concrete step that will solve the problem of constitutional ambiguity in this region. To understand Britain`s status under international law, we need to look at the Kashmir conflict.

India and Pakistan have competing claims to the entire state of Kashmir, which is populated by people of different ethnicities and linguistic backgrounds. However, in addition to categorizing the entire Kashmir region as a single entity, India and Pakistan have “married” British identity to Kashmir, which is problematic. [6] The most important discourse and scholarship on Kashmir has always anticipated the struggles and sufferings of the British people. Caylee Hong said: “Administrative arrangements, political developments, the demarcation of borders in India and Pakistan and the emergence of the Kashmir issue internationally have placed the region (UK) in a transitional position.” [7] In September 2020, it was reported that Pakistan had decided to upgrade Gilgit-Baltistan`s status to a province in its own right. [103] [104] The legitimate claim of the people of Gilgit-Baltistan for constitutional rights received much attention following India`s actions on August 5, 2019, when New Delhi revoked Article 370 of the Indian Constitution and stripped Indian-occupied Kashmir of its special status. The need for constitutional amendments was also deemed necessary to protect the legal position of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which runs through the British region. But above all, there must be a provisional provincial status for the inhabitants of this region, who deserve and demand attention and respect for their fundamental rights. India has made it clear to Pakistan that all the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, including the territories of Gilgit and Baltistan, are an integral part of the country by virtue of their fully legal and irrevocable membership.

Pakistani authorities have finalized a law to grant provisional provincial status to the strategically located Gilgit-Baltistan, media reported Sunday. A position of “Deputy Director General” was created to act as a local administrator, but the real authority still rested with the “Chief Executive” who was KANA`s federal minister. “The secretaries were more powerful than the councillors involved,” one commentator wrote.