Daily Times

General (Retd) Pervez Musharraf has always been amidst controversies eversince he came to limelight after being appointed as COAS by PML-Nleadership despite the fact that he was the junior most in the seniority list of the probable candidates for the position. Controversies continued all along. Some of Musharraf’s actions were the removal of a corps commander who was invited by Mian Sharif for dinner at Jati Umra, becoming chairman of joint chiefs, dismissal of PML-N government, NRO given to Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, declaration of emergency, and arresting of judiciary.

In December 2019, the death penalty awarded to Musharraf also become a controversy.

According to the paragraph number 66 of the special court’s split decision, the corpse of Musharraf must be dragged to D-Chowk, Islamabad and hung in public for three days.The tone of the verdict was horrifying in places and indicated a troubling descent into medievalism. Have we really become so brutalised as a society that we can order the corpse to be dragged to a public square and strung up for three days? Violence, danger and foreboding make a frightful cocktail, and yet we sip it.

The death sentence handed down to the former president and the former army chiefhas shocked the nation. Paragraph number 66 of the detailed judgement has shockedpeople’s sensibilities. Two of the three judges on the special court bench had found Musharraf guilty and sentenced him to death. It is for the first time in this country that a former army chief has been found guilty of high treason. The two-one verdict had raised some other serious constitutional questions, including on the role of those who had helped Musharraf in his Nov 3, 2007 misadventure.

Many Pakistanis, individually as well as collectively, have a bitter aversion to legal and constitutional limitations

When we talk about speedy justice in a high treason case, the whole nation is eager to hearverdicts of other high-profile cases like the Model Town killings and the Sahiwal shooting.

Many Pakistanis, individually as well as collectively, have a bitter aversion to legal and constitutional limitations. Even a person holding a top administrative or state position flagrantly violates the constitutional limits, considering it to be no more important than a class three textbook and their own height to betowering. The legal or the constitutional noose fits only around the neck of the poor or those who cannot bribe or do not have a godfather among the influential, at home or abroad.

The judiciary ensures safety and peace of a society.If judges, from bottom to top, are honest, competent, daring and impartially efficient and speedy justice is provided topeople, it would act as aweapon against any internal or external threat that may infringe upon the legal or constitutional rights of people or the security and solidarity of the country. Timid, weak, lazy, incompetent, corrupt, biased and partial judges are the black stains and stigmas on the social canopy. Prolonged judicial procedures and heavy costs of legal matters are mockery of justice. Winston Churchill, the British prime minister in the early 1940s, assured the mediaduring the Second World War that Britain would win the war because its judiciary dispensed quick and impartial justice to people.

The Musharraf judgement, notwithstanding its disturbing language in some places, forms the basis for a frank and robust debate on the direction in which Pakistani democracy is heading. Indeed, there is a need for course correction.The state has no immortality; its salvation is now or never.Everyone reposes trust in the constitutional framework that binds us all into one republic. This framework then produces an outcome that fulfills the requirements of legality and stability.

We have been down this road before. That journey has not been pleasant. On the crossroads again, we can draw on the wisdom of lessons learnt and experiment with the application of generous rationality. A democratic deficit suits no one. The price for embracing this deficit is paid in lost decades and forfeited opportunities. Without introspection, the country will continue to slide towards anarchy, a situation that anti-state elements will be only to keen to exploit.

The writer is a lawyer