In the history of British India, Lord Ripon is remembered as the most humane viceroy that the Crown ever sent to rule the subcontinent. Having repealed the Vernacular Press Act in 1882 that the Indians had demanded so vociferously, Lord Ripon encouraged CP Ilbert, law member of his viceroy council, to draft an extraordinary bill, which, along with local government powers to Indians, aimed to empower local Indian judges to try the British and European residents of India. The idea of Indian judges trying British defendants was hitherto unimaginable for the colonisers. Consequently, the backlash from British and Europeans was unprecedentedly harsh.
The white expatriates of India boycotted Lord Ripon. British politicians and media in England too were equally incensed. Reporting that a White Mutiny was stirring in India, leading newspapers such as Daily Telegraph commented, “On the day when we surrender the rights and privileges of superior strength and ethnical rank in India, we invite our own expulsion”. Other newspapers also criticised the proposed law with similar racial disdain against Indians. Pressure from opposition parties back home, British expatriates in India, and English media was so overwhelming that the bill was modified beyond recognition. Ripon had to be removed prematurely within a year of this crisis.
The Ripon episode came to my mind as I saw last week Supreme Court rejected the petition to make judges and generals accountable on the same yardstick with politicians and civil servants, calling it mala fide; then, an in-camera meeting of the parliamentary committee on new accountability law also failed to reach a consensus on how judges and generals could be brought under the purview of this law. While we have started seeing resistance to such an across the board accountability of the public office holders beyond politicians and civil servants, the uproar and clamor against such an inclusive accountability will likely get harsher if the parliamentarians move forward with law.
The current law of accountability was the brainchild of General Pervez Musharraf, a military usurper, in 1999. While Musharraf’s accountability law could try public office-holders, civil servants, politicians and even civilians, it so conveniently excluded the officers of the armed forces as well as judges of superior courts
Hitherto the civilian regimes were never any close to having a will and strength to legislate laws for an inclusive accountability where none is spared and where the accountability is not just internal. The current law of accountability was the brainchild of General Pervez Musharraf, a military usurper, in 1999. While Musharraf’s accountability law could try public office-holders, civil servants, politicians and even civilians, it so conveniently excluded the officers of the armed forces as well as judges of superior courts.
Oft-repeated justification for excluding the judges and generals from a common and transparent accountability is derived from the potential threats to, for instance, independence of judiciary and national interest in case of military. Consequently, the judges and generals are subjected to internal accountability mechanism, which has led these mechanisms to be rather secretive and lacking transparency in the eyes of public. As for the judiciary, the fact is that we haven’t seen a single judge of the High Courts and Supreme Court removed from office on charges of corruption as a result of internal accountability through Supreme Judicial Council. The system is such that we even don’t have briefest information about any past cases or how many complaints the supreme judicial council has addressed so far since 1973.
At least there are frequent cases of accountability within military corridors. Just last year, we saw around a dozen senior officers of armed forces sentenced through military’s internal accountability mechanism. However, in cases of corruption at a senior level, it’s actually a collegial mechanism exposed to empathy as a result of Espirit De Corps. Many in public have often found the punishments through internal mechanism of military, especially in cases of corruption as too soft, compared to what a civilian is subjected to in similar cases.
Besides, there are instances where the accused ex-servicemen could not be brought to justice. One such case is of a retired General, who as a minister was accused of leading the controversial leasing of railways land worth Rs 25 billion in Lahore to a private company which built a golf course there.
Seen from the perspective of our societal character, we all know how favoritism, nepotism, greed, fears and graft are rampant in Pakistan. Not just the politicians and civil servants but the judges and generals too belong to the same society. How come while politicians and civil servants are so frequently found fallible but the judges and generals are able to escape these human temptations which are the hallmark of our society?
In that context, what kind of accountability is it when the process is internal and remains shrouded in mystery and flimsy excuses? We are no longer a colony run by alien rulers to justify an apartheid-driven governance, where some are left to enjoy ‘white’ privileges.
The writer is a sociologist with interest in history and politics of Pakistan. He tweets @Zulfirao1 and is accessible at [email protected]
Published in Daily Times, October 12th 2017.