Daily Times

As the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) and Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) launched on August 14 the azaadi (independence) march and inqilab (revolution) march respectively, and then undertook the sit-ins (dharnas) in Islamabad, day by day these shenanigans are increasingly being perceived as a deadly threat to the political and constitutional set-up prevailing in the country. With the worsening law and order situation in the capital, including fears of occupation of state buildings by the marchers, the fear of military intervention looms large on the political horizon. However, in the face of this, something very surprising has taken place: all the political parties sitting in parliament reposed and reiterated their complete confidence in the current political set-up, including the government, rejected the marchers’ calls for the prime minister’s resignation, dissolution of the National and provincial Assemblies and holding of mid-term elections. More so, bar associations and civil society organisations throughout the country have supported the cause of the continuation of the current political, constitutional set-up. Finally, the Supreme Court (SC) has also judged that all the institutions and authorities of the state must work within their constitutional domains.
This is unprecedented in the long and chequered political history of Pakistan. Somehow, all the political elements, except the protesting ones out of which the PAT has no representation in parliament, have put their weight behind the constitution, ruling out any military adventure. Symbolically, this is a victory for the Charter of Democracy (CoD) that Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto signed in May 2006. However, it is strictly a political victory that may or may not translate into something concrete for the citizens of Pakistan.
A look at the CoD may reveal the political contours of the tale. It lists the following maladies that afflict Pakistan: political crisis, threats to its survival, erosion of the federation’s unity, the military’s subordination of all state institutions, marginalisation of civil society, mockery of the constitution and representative institutions, growing poverty, unemployment and inequality, brutalisation of society, breakdown of rule of law and unprecedented hardships facing our people under military dictatorships.
After listing these afflictions, the CoD proposed an alternative direction for the country characterised by the following: economically sustainable, socially progressive, politically democratic and pluralist, federally cooperative, ideologically tolerant, internationally respectable, regionally peaceful and gave the sovereign right to the people to govern through their elected representatives.
In no way was anything agreed in the CoD by the two larger political parties related to any aspect of the fundamental rights of the individual citizens of Pakistan. Revisit the CoD and note its essentially political character that may be interpreted if not in an anti-citizen manner, then not necessarily in a pro-citizen way either. Hence, what the CoD agreed to achieve in 2006, it has achieved a substantial political part of it in 2014. Notwithstanding the rallying of the major political parties behind the demands of constitutional rule and continuity and against the PAT/PTI’s calls of winding up the political system, this unity may evaporate tomorrow or day after tomorrow.
In view of the above analysis, every sane person would love to support the present constitutional, political set-up and its continuation but, at the same time, he may wish it translates into the realistic availability of fundamental rights for each and every individual. As the Supreme Court (SC) has observed, if the protesters are exercising their rights, other citizens too have their rights that must not be encroached on by them.
Now it may be summed up that the CoD is half the truth for individual citizens and the other half of the truth lies in another charter, a charter of individual citizens’ fundamental rights. It was this spirit in which I responded to the CoD and wrote a Charter of Liberty (CoL) in September 2007 that sought to present a solution to the myriad problems and unimaginable sufferings faced by the ordinary people of Pakistan. The CoL presented not only a critique of the CoD but also offered an independent CoL for individual citizens so that their personal freedom and fundamental rights may be secured.
In contrast to the CoD’s political spirit that has manifested itself now in a constitutional consensus across the political horizon, the CoL tries to imbibe the individual spirit that permeates fundamental rights and their daily formulations in various situations. The individual citizens must rise to the occasion so that they are able to secure their personal freedom and fundamental rights against the onslaught of unruly political elements.
Here are some of the demands the charter of individual citizens’ fundamental rights includes. We, the individual citizens of Pakistan, hold that of all freedoms, individual freedom is of foremost importance and that without it all freedoms, be they political, economic or religious are useless, that without individual freedom, Pakistan can never be transformed into a virtuous society since it is individual freedom that allows people to make choices on their own and thus to be responsible for their choices and their consequences also, that the above amounts to saying that every individual citizen is endowed with certain inalienable rights such as right to life and liberty, that every individual citizen is free to pursue a life of his choice and liking until and unless he trespasses on such freedom of other individual citizens, that in the case of any trespassing, the trespasser, be it a citizen or a group or a political party or an institution or government itself, is to be dealt with in accordance with the law.
We hold that inalienable rights include, among other things, freedom of speech and writing, freedom of assembly and association, freedom of professing and practicing any philosophy, ideology, religion and freedom of propagating it by peaceful means only, that inalienable rights include freedom of movement, freedom of trade, freedom of business, freedom of profession, etc. This amounts to saying that the only justified function of government is to protect its citizens’ lives, their income and property, and their rights and freedoms from those who seek to usurp them, be they local or foreign individuals, groups of individuals, political parties, or institutions or government itself.
We hold that if there is no rule of law and no independent judiciary, even a parliamentary government can never come up to the expectations of its citizens, i.e. cannot protect their life, liberty and property, that without an independent judiciary, justice can never be accessible to each individual citizen and a just society can never be created. Thus, through this charter, the citizens’ fundamental rights not only in the political realm but in daily life situations, as is happening in Islamabad and elsewhere, may also be secured.

The writer is a Lahore-based political philosopher and analyst and author of Pakistan Mein Riyasati Ashrafiya Ka Urooj (The Rise of State Aristocracy in Pakistan) and other books