The Supreme Court Bar Association President, Asma Jahangir, has rightly said that the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, has done more than what Anna Hazare is doing against corruption in India. It is now obvious that when we were on the roads for the restoration of an independent judiciary, we were out for a good cause.
Corruption is rampant in both countries. In India, one person started a fast unto death, laying his life on the line. In Pakistan, there was no one who was willing to take such a risk. The Chief Justice, therefore, has taken up the role of pronouncing judgements on the corrupt.
The fact of the matter is that conditions in every country are different. In India, the governments implement the orders of the courts. Over here, the present government has done everything possible to thwart the judgements of the apex court, even though the Prime Minister claims that they respect it and its decisions. However, the facts speak otherwise:
The High Court convicted Interior Minister Rehman Malik in a case; within minutes President Asif Zardari granted him a pardon.
The very next day, he pardoned Malik’s crony, Sajjad Haider, who was sentenced along with his patron. The President used Article 45 of the Constitution to grant these pardons. A constitutional provision meant to be used rarely and with extreme care was employed twice in quick succession by Zardari to save his cronies.
Ahmad Riaz Sheikh, former Deputy Director of FIA, was sentenced by a court and sent to jail. In order to ensure that he was released immediately, the President commuted 25 percent of sentences of all prisoners in the country, so that this one prisoner could immediately walk free! This was reminiscent of the NRO where, in order to acquit Benazir Bhutto and Zardari, 8,000 persons guilty of major crimes, including as severe as murders, were acquitted. In either case, the system of crime and punishment was totally rubbished.
In the case of Zafar Iqbal Qureshi, who was pursuing the wrongdoers in the National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) case competently, the government transferred him elsewhere. When he had to be transferred back in accordance with the court’s orders, all four of the directors under him were transferred to remote punishment stations in the four provinces, due to no fault of theirs, but as an example to be set. Qureshi was stopped from going to his office on the excuse of a bomb threat. No trick of the trade was spared to ensure that he should not be able to do anything at all; all this just to allow the son of a political family to escape punishment.
It can be argued that it is the right of government to transfer officers. However, all powers under the Constitution are to be exercised in good faith. One is reminded of the case where a man asked his friend: “Why do you support that person? He is a scoundrel.” To which the latter replied: “Yes, but he is our scoundrel.” Surely, persons who hold the destiny of the people in their hands should have a higher standard of morality than that.
Some people say the Chief Justice should not take suo moto notice of the cases. True. But then let us look at the situation in Karachi. Over there, there are three ruling parties in the government. Yet, they are killing each other’s cadres, and have murdered thousands. The questions are: Have you ever heard of such a situation in the history of parliamentary democracy? In such a situation, how long could the Chief Justice just sit and watch the tamasha without doing something about it?
To conclude: Since the government in Pakistan is protecting the miscreants, it is safe to say that Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry is facing heavier odds than Anna Hazare. The people are with the Chief Justice, although they have not been demonstrating their support as much as they should. Good luck to him, and to the people of Pakistan.
The writer is a former principal of the King Edward Medical College, and former president of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Pakistan.
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