How many know that 15 million people were killed in the Great War only because a nondescript Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian nationalist, vented his patriotic angst by assassinating the Archduke Fernandez, the heir-apparent to the Austro-Hungarian throne? It provided the proverbial spark to the tinderbox that the early 20th century Europe had become after being rent into rival armed camps, notwithstanding the fact that the assassin’s motive was noble, as he wanted Austria-Hungary’s south Slav provinces to be amalgamated with Greater Serbia or a Yugoslavia.
Likewise, after a decade from now, how many would remember that the implementation of an ordinance — the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) — kept the country in a gridlock for four years, bringing the institutions, political parties, media and civil society on a perennial collision course? How many would appreciate this judicial obsession with an aberrant fiat at a time when the legions of the indigent, dehumanised and marginalised people were withering away at the hands of wicked mandarins, and apathetic, propertied and business interests? When the state was drifting like a rudderless ship in the choppy international waters, surrounded by powerful pirates and marauders?
True, the Supreme Court sent the prime minister packing because he ‘committed’ contempt of court. What about the contempt of those more than two million litigants who are ever condemned to suffer financial and physical hardships, mental and emotional agonies and the decades-long strivings to retrieve their civil, property or commercial rights, thanks to a judiciary that lacks good governance, delivery and integrity. The situation is even more pathetic in the lower courts where the original jurisdiction of much of the civil and criminal litigation lies.
But how many judges have been dismissed for being incompetent or corrupt? On the other hand, a number of civilian governments have been toppled by the establishment with the aid of the judiciary. Indeed, General Musharraf received powers almost equal to those of Louis XIV who had famously said, “I am the state.” Many of their Lordships who adorn the current benches willingly vetted Musharraf’s version of ‘I am the state’, giving him unbounded powers to amend the constitution. Wasn’t it a judicial NRO?
Despite that, when his Lordship Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry uttered that magical word of defiance, ‘no’, to the dictator, a tumult of people — lawyers, political parties, media and civil society — flocked to the CJ’s caravan marching against the general, forgiving the judges’ inglorious past. They sacrificed their lives and properties and stood fast until the military ruler succumbed. Indeed, the PPP government also lost much public sympathy when it unwisely delayed the restoration of the deposed judges. And that gave Nawaz Sharif an easy entry into the popular domain after remaining on the fringes for a long time.
It was expected that the restored judiciary would never become a collaborator with any illegal ruler again, and that a new era of cheap and quick justice would be ushered in. But alas, the era of cheap and quick justice never came. All that ensued was an unending judiciary vs all others tussle. As a result, neither the government nor the judiciary has focused on the organic and existential issues related to the state and society. Instead, the tussle allowed the traditional arrays of vested interests to grind their individual, partisan or institutional axes. No wonder, when a democratically elected prime minister has been judicially dislodged retrospectively, pushing the state into a governmental void, new avenues have opened up for the vested interests to indulge in crass wheeling and dealing in the name of electing a new prime minister.
Our professional opinion-makers, media gurus and political pundits are also applauding the judgment as another ‘milestone’, knowing that the next prime minister would also tread the path of the disqualified prime minister as regards the NRO and writing the letter to the Swiss authorities for reopening the cases against President Zardari. That begs the question: will that lead to another round of contempt proceedings, another hacking of a prime minister, and another political crisis? Will our playful elites ever remain engaged in sparring with each other, disregarding the common man’s increasingly grim economic plight and the country’s worsening security realities?
The answer is, what the elites are doing is not un-instinctive. Many of them owe their origin and rise to one or the other authoritarian patron. Many of them are actually simply the old actors wearing new democratic and constitutional masks. Their rhetoric is Jeffersonian, but their acts and intent are Machiavellian. When they claim that the unseating of an elected prime minister by the judiciary on murky legal ground would strengthen constitutionalism, they are well aware that such episodes could prove to be more unsettling for a country where the populace is already out on the roads protesting and getting violent by the day.
Indeed, it is the perfidious and hypocritical character of the elites that has never allowed democracy to take root here. They would never get tired of giving wholesome homilies on rule of law and good governance but they would let no opportunity go if it comes to grabbing power and pelf. As a result, while the law-abiding common man’s life is getting caught in a welter of existential problems, ever more batches of swindlers and crooks clamber up the political and financial ladders with impunity.
And even then it is democracy that is blamed, not its mock defenders. Predictably, the soothsayers are professing the return of the Praetorian guards, of course, to cleanse the mess caused by the ‘dirty civilians’. If that happens, then true to our political traditions many of the current incumbents, feudals, and businessmen would jump on the Praetorian bandwagon. And ironically, the cost of implementing a damned ordinance, NRO — and that against the sitting president — will be borne by none but the common man and the judiciary. One would lose his democratic rights, the other its nascent independence, to yet another Louis XIV.
The writer is a lawyer and academic and can be reached at [email protected]