IN Washington, a short walk can feel like an exercise in mapping the world’s anxieties. On one quiet stretch of Northwest DC, Pakistan’s embassy sits just steps away from the Israeli mission — neighbours by accident of location, but poles apart by history, narrative and ideology. A few miles away across the Potomac, in Langley, Virginia, the CIA’s headquarters is a reminder of the machinations of a superpower’s deep state. An hour’s drive from the capital on hilly terrain, the timeless rigours of nature around the Shen­andoah valley, got me thinking about the world’s most influential constitutional democracy, and how its new security document “looks like the Janus face of a fraying domestic constitutional order, providing geopolitical cover for domestic authoritarian rule and corporate aggrandizement”, in the words of two former US officials. The lesson, in fact, is simple: no society is immune when trust collapses and politics turns into a fight not over policy, but legitimacy. Pakistan has lived this saga for decades. Our tragedy is that we often debate democracy as if it were a trophy to be won, not a discipline to be practised. We speak of ‘rule of law’ while rewarding selective accountability. We invoke constitutionalism while resorting to distorting it. We offer dialogue without first restoring dignity, then wonder why no one trusts the offer. At the heart of this dysfunction is this question: are we governed by law or by rulers who use the law as an instrument? Under the rule of law, the state restrains itself; under the law of the ruler, the state restrains the citizen. Pakistan does not require yet another rhetorical recommitment to democracy. It needs a practical covenant — minimum commitments that bind winners and protect losers; that restrain state institutions and restore consent as the only durable foundation of governance. I therefore propose the following charter of democracy and good governance: Sovereignty of the people. All authority flows from citizens. Government legitimacy depends on credible elections, not sham outcomes. A state cannot be stable if large segments believe the ballot has been managed rather than respected. The Constitution is a covenant, not a weapon. Constitutional reform must be rooted in broad consent and transparent reasoning. When constitutions are altered as exercises in partisan engineering, the federation becomes a permanent battleground. No society is immune when politics turns into a fight not over policy, but legitimacy. A code of restraint for political actors. In polarised societies, leaders either cool the temperature or burn the house down. Political parties must renounce violence, discipline inflammatory rhetoric, accept peaceful alternation, and stop treating opponents as enemies. Parliament must reclaim its role. Democracy cannot survive as a series of arbitrary executive orders. Parliamentary committees must scrutinise budgets of all institutions, including the establishment and intelligence agencies. Dialogue must be real, not political theatre. It must lead to the genuine de-escalation of conflict, an agreed agenda, time-bound deliverables, and public clarity on what has been agreed. Dialogue offered under duress merely becomes propaganda, not reconciliation. Due process has the state’s moral signature. A state is judged by how independently and fairly it administers justice. Investigation, arrest, prosecution and trial must be lawful, reviewable and reasoned. The appearance of justice matters because it produces the one thing the state cannot manufacture: trust. The breach of civil liberties must be avoided. Speech, association, assembly and free press are not luxuries; they are feedback mechanisms. When the state narrows these spaces, it loses reality testing and begins to mistake silence for consent. Global democratic backsliding shows how easily ‘stability’ becomes an excuse for repression. Depoliticise the police. A politicised police force becomes the sharp edge of an authoritarian drift. Merit-based postings, independent complaints mechanisms, lawful crowd management, and insulation from partisan instruction should be non-negotiable in a constitutional state. Accountability must be even-handed. Selec­tive accountability is a political weapon; genuine accountability reflects a sound governance system. Anti-corruption must have clear thresholds, transparent prosecutorial processes, and protections against vendetta — otherwise it becomes a cycle of retaliation. Follow the money. Organised crime, illicit finance and elite capture hollow out democracies from within. A serious state builds financial intelligence, asset tracing, inter-agency coordination, and visible disruption of high-value criminal networks. The economy must be improved. Public procurement, tax fairness, regulation, and SOE refo­­rm must be transparent and competence-driven. Local government is democracy’s foundation. When citizens cannot solve problems locally — water, sanitation, schooling, health, policing — they lose faith in the system. Empowered, elected LGs with fiscal authority are not administrative decorations; they are the bedrock of legitimacy. Maintaining the civil-military balance. In stable democracies, national security institutions operate under constitutional direction and civilian oversight. When lines blur, politics becomes securitised and security becomes politicised — and citizens pay the price. Measure what you promise and deliver. A charter without an implementation mechanism is hollow. An independent parliamentary commission should publish an annual state of democracy and governance scorecard — tracking election integrity markers, case backlogs, police complaints and outcomes, press freedom infringements, LG performance, and financial crimes disruption — and debate it in parliament. The above charter contains the minimum rules necessary to prevent the strong from rewriting the system whenever power changes hands. The choice is stark. We can continue to treat the law as a tool to discipline rivals and reward allies or ad­­o­pt the rule of law as a means of restraining errant governments, institutions, and political actors. A state is strongest when citizens trust it, and do not fear it. Trust is created when the law applies equally, when institutions behave predictably, and when power accepts limits. This is the difference between the rule of law and the law of the ruler. The writer is a former inspector-general of police. Published in Dawn, December 31st, 2025