Daily Times

Historically, the most relevant significance of judicial decisions is controversial cases of rebels and revolutionaries tried by the various regimes of the ruling classes to eliminate or chastise them. During direct British colonial rule, judicial trials such as the Kanpur Conspiracy Case, the Singapore Mutiny and many prosecutions of the Ghaddar Party revolutionaries, the Meerut Conspiracy Case, the trial of Bhagat Singh and his comrades of the Hindustan Socialist Revolutionary Association, the indictment of the Indian National Army, and the rebellious sailors of the Royal Indian Navy who ignited the flame for the 1946 revolutionary upheavals throughout India are just a few famous cases.
Post-partition in Pakistan we witnessed the 1951 Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case targeting Communist Party leaders, including Faiz, and the so-called judicial murder of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto by a repressive nexus of General Zia and the judiciary, which proved to be the vital organ of an oppressive state apparatus to impose despotic rule. These verdicts were against those who dared to challenge the system and its state while leading struggles for the class and national liberation of the oppressed.
This week, once again that great beacon of ‘independent justice’ the 17-member bench of the Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan, headed by its Chief Justice (CJ), is hearing petitions challenging the 18th Constitutional Amendment and the establishment of military courts under the 21st Amendment to try ‘hardened’ terrorists. Senior advocate Khalid Anwar, defending the amendments, argued before the SC bench: “The 1973 Constitution is an uneasy marriage between Islam and Socialism, which will never succeed. While the preamble of the Constitution under Article Two enunciated about the Islamic doctrine of sovereignty, Article Three was the exact reproduction of Article 12 of the USSR’s 1936 Constitution, which called for the elimination of exploitation and fulfilment of fundamental human needs. The original 1973 Constitution was the product of the PPP government, which came into power on the back of the 1968-1969 revolutionary movement against the Ayub dictatorship, its socialist manifesto, particularly the slogan of ‘Roti, kapra aur makaan’ (food, clothes and shelter) invoking the concept of Socialism, as opposed to religion.” The advocate went on to say, “Socialism is the basic structure of the Constitution. The concept of Socialism was derived from Marxism and Lenin…the present Constitution is far, far superior than the earlier 1973 Constitution the credit for which goes partly to the Supreme Court as well as parliament.” However, he failed to mention that the present Constitution is plagued with draconian religious articles infringed by the Islamic fundamentalist dictator Ziaul Haq.
Historically, the judiciary has always been a devious institution of the state apparatus and has always weighed on the side of the repressive system. For workers, justice is always expensive, protracted and frustrating. It has become prohibitive because of exorbitant lawyers’ fees, court costs and corruption. According to the latest report published by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), “There are 1.793 million cases pending in courts across the country. The huge gap between the law and its implementation directly leads to rise in crime rates and low conviction rates, especially in relation to crimes against minorities and vulnerable sections of society. Parliamentarians have not shown any efforts for judicial and legal reforms, and only promulgated laws that sought to promote state security at the expense of citizens’ rights and liberties.”
It is ironic that while the PPP is being accused by the right wing of introducing Socialist clauses in the Constitution, its incumbent leadership, proliferated by lumpen billionaires, is standing with the right wing establishment and imperialists against the working masses. This phenomenon is not unique in Pakistan. Social democracy and Communist parties from Europe to China are in the present epoch carrying out policies of aggressive neoliberal capitalism. Their policies of ‘humane capitalism’ or market socialism have proved to be disastrous for the working class and the poor. A new wave of class struggle has arisen from the industrial and social arenas onto the political plane. The collapse of the PASOK in Greece, PSOE in Spain, PSF in France and the defeat of the Labour Party in the UK are a few examples of mass rejection of traditions that have betrayed the workers and the youth.
Since the 1980s every PPP regime, from Benazir to Zardari, has openly moved against the party’s founding programme of Socialist transformation in Pakistan. The PPP has continuously moved to the right and, in the process, initiated workers’ wages and benefits in desperation to appease the ruling class, bourgeois state and US imperialism. The latest antic in this series of betrayals was unashamedly embracing Nawaz and the PML-N in its latest vicious attack on the working masses by imposing Rs 145 billion taxes on gas. A newspaper report describes this despicable role of the present PPP leadership: “The government managed on Tuesday to get a bill passed with support from the PPP, to levy a controversial gas tax amid a boisterous protest…In a classic sleight of hand, PPP lawmakers led the debate during the first part of the session on Tuesday, terming the Gas Infrastructure Development Cess (GIDC) Bill 2014, ‘a conspiracy to weaken the federation’. But, when it came to voting on the bill, they didn’t oppose it…In the afternoon, during the second part of the session, PPP’s Naveed Qamar said the PPP’s concerns regarding the bill had been addressed by the government, which had accepted some amendments…However, sources say that during the last meeting between PPP Co-Chairman Asif Zardari and the PM, the former had agreed to support the government over the bill.”
Although the PPP’s traditional base has been declining over the last three decades, the misery inflicted by the last Zaradari regime and its current role is rapidly pushing it towards disintegration. Political pundits have been writing the PPP off for decades but this time the writing on the wall is starker. The big question is: what is the mass alternative for the working classes? The nature of the economic, political and leadership crisis is such that all kinds of developments are possible and it is important to be sober minded and not get carried away. It will also be contingent upon the ideological and political lines of its disintegration. As Trotsky once explained, “These are stormy times; the masses are restless; the most intelligent workers are seeking above all to understand what is going on. They will not be satisfied with the mere repetition of current slogans. They must be given a complete answer” (January 27, 1938).
Ultimately, it will depend on the development of the forces of Marxism to intervene in the titanic events that impend and the opportunities that will open up in a revitalised mass movement. Socio-economic transformations cannot come about by inserting Socialist clauses in the constitutions of bourgeois political superstructures. The conscious and courageous intervention of the working classes and the youth in the revolution is the only guarantee for a Socialist victory.

The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and international secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at lalkhan1956@gmail.com