Malik M Aslam Awan
SINCE the creation of our country a large chunk of society is unhappy with the stranded norms of justice. There is an oft quoted saying “to do justice with one and in justice to all”. Privileged classes have an edge over the downtrodden one. Ours is an agrarian based economy and almost 70 % people are attached with agriculture. Allah Almighty has blessed our country with four seasons. In scorching heat working in farms is too much difficult. In the same way in freezing winter days one would find difficult to do cumbersome work in fields. To depict this picture is meant to elaborate the intensity of agrarian worker, rest of 30 % depends upon the agrarian feeding.
Political echelons make a series of promises with the farmers when they run electioneering campaign. The eyes of the poor get sparking with the future ahead every time a new figure raises a new slogan sometime “Roti Kapra Aur Makan” and sometime “Niya Pakistan”. When the voting flock uses their “Perchi” then they have to wait. Why the promises of star politicians don’t come to be realized. Suddenly the voting flock are asked to wait patiently as the empowered party has no “Allah Din Ka Charag” to set everything right within minutes. When PM Imran Khan used to say that after assuming power he will recover even pennies from the looters of national exchequer, he was right then and even he is right now but at that time he was not fully aware of the hurdles in his way.
Now PM Imran Khan might have realized how difficult is to incarnate his vision. Our justice system is required to be revitalized. During his Dharna his body language mirrored him as the Hero of the Age. After assuming power it was difficult for him to come out of his illusion that he would win the world cup to change Pakistan and its prevailing system. Now he often takes U-Turns from the prelude of electioneering stance.
I.K might have fully realized that mere winning the ballot “Perchi” is nothing, there are other power sharing hands to grab the big bite from power. They behave quite politely but their intentions loom large like wolf in the darkness starring to swallow everything in his front. Former Premier somehow or other has managed his somewhat escape from land laws. Evidently he has countless wealth to engage highly paid law clerics and a host of medical pre-actioners to take care of him. Nawaz enjoys the charisma to make stand up a political cleric like Fazal-ur-Rehman to create tension in the power corridors to make the power chairs to reconsider their stance about him (Nawaz) to save their skulls. What a wonder that ironically I.K is again to take a new turn about Nawaz. No doubt on humanitarian grounds Nawaz has been awarded conditional bails or suspension of punishment but in same way hundreds and thousands of ailing and aging prisoners deserve the same justice formula as is applied in Nawaz case. These prisoners also deserve to be given the bails or suspension of punishments till their recovery. PM Imran Khan should come one step forward and announce a fair medical checkup of all aging and ailing persons undergoing imprisonment and accordingly their cases with all their medical history be brought to courts with official pleaders and their cases be pleaded officially before courts with state consent for their release, then we can expect that Pakistan is a state where there is “Justice for All”.
Judicial process is so complicated that the award of punishment is based on solid facts concrete poof and crystal clear witnesses. The advantage of suspicion always goes to the accused. If there is even an iota of suspicion the accused will get the benefit of doubt and be acquitted in the long run. Justice is expected to be measured by the same scale as is benefitted by the privileged class. It has been an established practice in Pakistan that justice is only for the privileged, not for the poor and under-privileged, so to say there are two different aspects of law, for privileged it has ominous aspect and for ill-fated has dark aspect.
Crooked and biased illustrations of law is always intended to encourage those who have heaps of currency at their back. If one has countless currency he may engage a clique of law experts who’ll surely manage the escape of his neck from the cruel clutches of law. Shorn of currency, though one may be innocent, cannot escape his skin from the law of the land. None will come to the fore to save the ill-fated. Since the inception of nascent democratic institutions, its participants well realized that irrespective of the national interest they will have to promote their personal interests, otherwise their rustication from power corridor is a day-like fact. To empower themselves so-called politicians looted the national exchequer mercilessly and consequently the very foundations of the state became vulnerable to foreign funding and interception. Power game has become so intricate that once entered in, it will be hard to come out of this mess. The premier the pilot of the racing cab is unable to stabilize national economy and the cab is going haphazardly having no destiny ahead. Strongest economy, richest masses and justice for all is the dream yet to be realized.
–The writer is a freelance columnist based at Lahore.
