Justice vs Government

Monday, May 10, 2010 - These days the Government has adopted a defiant attitude towards the Supreme Court. It does not want to implement the Supreme Court judgement on reopening the NRO cases, after all along declaring that it would abide by SC judgment. This is leading to a clash between the Government and the SC, which the Government says is a clash with Parliament.

This would be the most unfortunate clash of two important institutions of the State if it does take place.The Government spokesmen are claiming that Parlaiment is Supreme and implying that it is above the S.C in final analysis. The Government claims that as a democratic government they are the will of the people above every body. This is where a fallacy arises. It is important to clarify certain points. Let it be said that as perfect democracy as exists at present is in the West where its present form in vogue is of recent product of industrial revolution and liberalism born out of French Revolution. The word ‘Democracy’ is of ancient Greek origin and it developed mostly in England from the eighteenth century onwards For this reason the British Parliament is called mothers of all parliaments- or in fact modern form of democracy. The basic ideas of democracy and practices and conventions are of ‘English’ origin. It was introduced in its new face by the British rule in India as is known. The oft repeated description of democracy as rule of the people, by the people for the people is attributed to American President Abraham Lincoln. Look at the latest elections in UK. That so many Pakistanis got elected in UK is a proof of existence of democracy in UK. Can a thing like this happen in Pakistan? Even Catchpole, the legendry techer of Abbotabad Public School was never made an “M.P.” in Pakistan. Why?

What is in Pakistan today is an attempt to introduce democracy. This is obvious from the fact that in UK or any Western country there would be no conflict between the Parliament and the Supreme Court. There it is an established practice that the highest Court has the power to examine any legislation whether it is in conformity with the basic structure of the Constitution or not. Legislature has no absolute power to legislate as it pleases.

I might add that Aristotle the father of the philosophy of democracy says that there are three systems, of which democracy is one. When healthy it is “demo” cracy or rule of the people, when sick it becomes mobo-cracy, or rule of the mob. There can be no democracy without the rule of law and granting justice irrespective of any consideration of political affiliations, caste, race, creed, etc. There can be no democracy without the rule of law through an independent judiciary. But in Islam while there is emphasis on mutual consultation before deciding any course of action of the state, greatest ewmphasis has been laid on doing justice. Hazrat Ali (RAU) has even said “ A government can survive despite Kufr but cannot survive with injustice.

Any thing devoid of justice is totalitarianism not democracy.

In Islam people’s rights and social justice which are what justice is all about, are most sacred than any thing else. It seems that if any clash took place with Judiciary , that is SC, majority of people are likely to side with SC. One hopes that that stage would not be reached. .Justice s a divine attribute and is a gift to human beings. . Let us not indulge in hyperbole that there has not been independent judges in the past, but it is now for the first time that with CJ Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry great emphasis is being given to courts doing justice speedily and so many suo moto actions had been taken. This has made CJ Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry among the masses a highly popular person and an icon of their aspirations, which standing in the country no other person enjoys.

The other item which is a hot topic these days is the so-called terrorist foiled act in Times Square by Feisal Shahzad. It is full of questionable statesmen by American Police/FBI, C I A. The story has many loopholes and does not click. First, for such a cheeky crime as trying to blow the Time Square in New York a terrorist would leave no loopholes to be caught in no time, with all pointers towards him. He was traced so quickly on interrogation of the alleged seller of the car who sold it to him without getting it transferred in the name of the new buyer. In law till the car is transferred in the name of the buyer the responsibility of whatever happens in the car is the responsibility of the registered owner. Why the woman whose car it was in such a hurry to dispose of the car and not bother to transfer the ownership in the buyer’s name? Was she planting the car on Faisel Shahzad ? Thank God that the car did not explode in Time Square and colossal damage to lives and property saved but terrorist do not do such half hearted jobs. Was the intention to implicate Shahzad Faisal a Pakistani in this put up attempted terrorism?

An important point in the whole story is that he comes from a very respectable, educated family. In Pakistan a Youngman of such a family is very careful not to blot the name of his family, or its respectability. He went to US to settle there not to indulge in acts of terrorism which will not only dishonour his family but also his country. How he just threw away this basic ingrained breeding.? This is the first case of its nature where a boy of such background goes astray. And this transformation takes place in his stay in US. What were those factors which drowned the cultural values of keeping the name of family high? In such family backgrounds family keeping the family name unblemished is a basic tradition.

Was Faisal Shahzad working for some anti-Pakistan agency to give Pakistan a bad name just when India was using all its verbosity to malign Pakistan for the Qasab incident in Mombai? Taleban have denied having used him then who did? Was he out of his mind, was he acting in the interest of a foreign agency? There are the questions which remained unanswered.

— The writer is PhD Political Science from Ottawa University, Canada.