Archive for February, 2009

Judgement Day by Adnan Rehmat

Elected governments in Pakistan are rarely ousted by voters (Musharraf and Shujaat’s PML-Q being the only such specimen). More often than not this task is undertaken with relish by the military through armed coups. Or by one elected government against another through Governor Rule, the PPP turning this into an art form, having employed this dubious instrument in all instances of the country’s history save one. Either way, the pandemonium in Punjab is more than a just court case about the eligibility of the Sharif brothers – the bench was also on trial.

What makes this no ordinary a verdict is that Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif have not just been declared ineligible for membership of legislatures but also that neither can the elder brother become prime minister or chief minister nor the younger brother chief minister again. Both also stand disqualified from being formal leaders of their Pakistan Muslim League-N. This is effectively a knockout of the Sharifs from formal politics since they have lost power, lost membership of legislatures and lost leadership of the country’s second largest party.

This raises the issue of whether the courts should have the power to decide who can and who can’t become the country’s leaders and the leaders of political parties. While justice, they say, is blind – the laws currently in force helped the bench deliver this shocker – surely the judges are not. How can they have ignored that while legal decisions can address a temporary situation, lasting acceptance comes only through legitimacy of trust. The final verdict lies with the people. At least four times has Pakistan’s superior judiciary legalized martial law (twice by Musharraf) and at least thrice declared the sacking of elected governments and prime ministers by military backed presidents as valid. At least once the same court ordered an elected prime minister swing on the gallows. See how history views these verdicts now. Have we really produced judges without vision? The people of Pakistan deserve better.

And if the latest ‘big’ verdict is such a fine example of universal values, why are the sweetmeat shops deserted? It is peculiar that even though many see the PPP being the immediate beneficiary (considering it has a shot now at coming to power for the first time in over 30 years in Punjab), where is the jubilation of the triumphant? The reaction from all quarters in Pakistan to the verdict is either anger or shock even though the court’s verdict was Pakistan’s worst kept secret for weeks. Not even PPP leaders seem happy. Why this near universal non-satisfaction with ‘justice’ having being delivered?

PPP ministers and other leaders are avoiding giving responses to the verdict apart from a muted mumble here and there about respecting court verdicts even though the Supreme Court delivered a death sentence on Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, which is now rejected by not just this but many other parties also. It appears that even if the PPP leaders are not sad at the prospects of their biggest political rivals knocked out of electoral politics, they don’t seem happy either. If the ruling party is not happy at the disqualification of the Sharifs and had not courted this then the question arises as to who gets to really gain from this development? No less that Khurshid Shah, a senior ruling party leader, says the ‘establishment’ in particular and ‘non-democratic forces’ in general, who do not want the supremacy of democratic forces and sovereignty of parliament as these are the only danger to them, will benefit.

The impact of the verdict in this case will extend beyond a legal interpretation that is as controversial as it was expected. Whatever the technical aspects or merits of the verdict, the already controversial Supreme Court has become even more contentious. Its reputation has been dealt a crippling blow even as an institution several judges and thousands of lawyers seek justice for its deposed top judge. How to reconcile the fact that an army chief topples an elected government and he is given legitimacy and not just that; a serving general is allowed by the same court to be eligible for public office and yet a party and its leaders elected by millions of voters are considered ineligible for representation.

Justice, after all they say, not only should be done but also needs to be seen to be done. Perceptions are important. People will always connect the dots. The connection between judges having sworn an oath of allegiance to a military ruler and providing him relief is clear. Judges who refused were sacked. That was clear. Also transparent is the fact that the judges sworn in by Musharraf have not been removed by the current rulers even when they had promised to do so. It is no surprise that not just the aggrieved party (the Sharifs and their PML-N) but also the people in general see a connection between the current judges and the controversial verdict they have handed out and support to them extended by the PPP in their ‘legal’ defense.

Barely 50 hours before the verdict Prime Minister Yousaf Gilani and Shahbaz Sharif in a meeting had agreed to make joint efforts to make the parliament supreme over all other institutions. Clearly, the Supreme Court verdict is a message for Gilani that his is not the station for such lofty ambitions, which do not suit his party colleagues higher in hierarchy than him.

Sharifs have alleged that Asif Zardari is singularly behind the Dogar Court’s verdict. The PPP may pooh-pooh this charge but for a verdict that stretched for eight months and was handed down the day after Zardari returned from China so he could conveniently take the next step to taking control of Punjab makes it hard to ignore PML-N’s suspicions.

Had the government wanted, it could have prolonged the case through its attorney general so as to at least see through the long march and the sit-in planned by the lawyers and keep the PML-N away from adding muscle to this popular movement. But considering the closing arguments of Latif Khosa in the case against the Sharifs, few can doubt that a select band of the PPP leadership carefully planned to convert Punjab into a political battleground and to plough its best horses into the course.

But where’s the calculation of the fallout of the Sharifs’ knockout? Benazir Bhutto’s death triggered days of intense and violent protests but because she couldn’t be brought back, as her death was irreversible, the protests died down. But the PML-N and its supporters and voters are going to be around, as are the Sharifs, so it is hard to see that the protests will not be prolonged particularly when they join forces with the lawyers and those agitators par excellence – Qazi Hussain Ahmed’s Jamaat-e-Islami and Imran Khan’s Tehrik-e-Insaf. After all it’s best not to take lightly Nawaz Sharif’s pregnant threat that Punjab will not take this ’slap on its face’ lying down.

PPP’s connivance or not, any short-term gains for Zardari’s party will be a huge price to pay for the court’s pushing of Pakistan into the 1990s’ era of political destabilization, which centred on bringing down governments rather than governance. This can only mean that the establishment will reclaim an overwhelming influence once again on the national polity and claw back to the status of the chief arbiter of fates of major political parties. This, in turn, means that not just the PML-N but the PPP will also be the loser in the medium term. In the long term, though, the PPP will be the bigger loser as it assumes the perception of a force akin to the Muslim League faction led by Sharif in the time of General Ziaul Haq – hands in glove with the establishment – while the PML-N assumes the position once enjoyed by PPP, again in the time of Zia. How ironical.