HISTORY has dealt the Islamic world a terrible hand. From the 13th century onward, the defining moments in the world of Islam were the Mongol invasions and the imperialist intrusion of the West and the advent of colonial dependency. It is significant how little the western approach to the Muslim world has changed during this period.

Before embarking on his Egyptian expedition, Napoleon Bonaparte presented himself to the Islamic world as its greatest champion and a great admirer of the Holy Prophet. Today there is a striking similarity in President Bush’s approach to the situation in Iraq and the rest of the Islamic world.

The modus operandi is the same. Praise Islam as a religion of peace and love but be war-like and destroy weak and defenceless Muslim countries if they refuse to toe the line. Praise the Holy Prophet but unleash the hounds of war against his followers, bomb innocent men, women and children, occupy their lands, change their governments by force of arms and replace them with client regimes.

The first blow to the Muslim world came in 1220 AD. “You have committed great sins”, Genghis Khan, sole superpower and terror of the world in the 13th century, told the people of Bukhara. “If you ask me what proof I have for these words”, he said. “I say it is because I am the Scourge of God”. The next blow was in 1258 AD when Hulagu, the grandson of Genghis Khan, attacked one of the central pillars of Muslim ascendancy, the Caliphate itself. When the siege of Baghdad ended, 80,000 people came out of the great city. They were counted by the Mongols and then systematically killed. For six days and nights, the massacre continued.

The slaughter was so thorough and so appalling that its memory has never left the Arab minds. The sculls of the dead, as legend has it, were stacked in a pyramid as a grim reminder of Mongol savagery. The Caliph himself was rolled in a carpet, and then trampled to death by galloping horses. The date was February 20, 1258 AD. The fall of Baghdad plunged the Muslim world in a state of shock and terror from which it has not recovered till today. For the first time a significant part of the Islamic world was subjected to the domination of a non-Muslim power. Is history about to repeat itself?

The next expedition against the world of Islam was commanded by Napoleon Bonaparte. On June 22, 1798, he set out to conquer Egypt, a country he described “as the first theatre of civilization in the universe”.

“Soldiers”, Bonaparte proclaimed, “you are going to undertake a conquest, the effect of which, upon commerce and civilization, will be incalculable. The eyes of mankind are fixed upon you.

The Memluke Beys, who tyrannize over the unhappy inhabitants of the banks of the Nile, will no longer exist in a few days after our arrival. The people among whom you are going to live, are Mahometans: the first article of their faith is, ‘there is no other god but God and Mahomet is his Prophet. Do not contradict them. Treat their Muftis and their Imams with respect’”.

The snake, it is said, covers its prey with saliva before devouring it. After establishing his headquarter at Alexandria, Bonaparte issued the following proclamation in Arabic:

“In the name of God, gracious and merciful. There is no god but God; he has no son nor associate in his kingdom.

“Inhabitants of Egypt! When the Beys tell you the French are come to destroy your religion, believe them not: it is an absolute falsehood. Answer these deceivers, that they are only come to rescue the rights of the poor from the hands of their tyrants, and that the French adore the Supreme Being, and honour the Prophet and his Holy Quran”.

“All men are equal in the eyes of God: understanding, ingenuity, and science, alone make a difference between them. As the Beys do not possess any of these qualities, they cannot be worthy to govern the country. Yet they are the only possessors of extensive tracts of lands, beautiful female slaves, excellent horses, and magnificent places! Have they, then, received an exclusive privilege from the Almighty? If so, let them produce it.

“But the Supreme Being, who is just and merciful towards all mankind, wills, that, in future, none of the inhabitants in Egypt shall be prevented from attaining to the first employments, and the highest honours. The administration, which shall be conducted by persons of intelligence, talents, and foresight, will be productive of happiness and security”.

“The French are true Mussulmen! Not long since they marched to Rome, and overthrew the throne of the Pope who excited the Christians against the professors of the Mahometan religion. Our friendship shall be extended to those of the inhabitants of Egypt who shall join us, as also to those who shall remain in their dwellings, and observe a strict neutrality; and, when they have seen our conduct with their own eyes, hasten to submit to us; but the dreadful punishment of death awaits those who shall take up arms for the Beys, and against us: for them their shall be no deliverance, nor shall any trace of them remain”.

Before launching the attack on Afghanistan, Bush visited the Islamic Centre in Washington DC and addressing the gathering, quoted from the Holy Quran: “In the long run, evil in the extreme will be the end of those who do evil. For that they rejected the signs of Allah and held them up to ridicule”.

The 20th century began with western powers seeking to impose a new order on the Middle East, the heartland of Islam. The Middle East, as we know it today, emerged from decisions made by Allies during and after the First World War. Middle Eastern countries and their frontiers were created in the salons of Paris under the notorious 1916 Sykes-Picot treaty. Iraq and what we call Jordan are British fabrications, lines drawn on a map by British politicians after the First World War, while the boundaries of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq were established by a British civil servant in 1922.

The frontiers between Muslims and Christians were drawn by France in Syria and by Russia on the borders of Armenia and Azerbaijan. At that time, the political landscape of the Middle East looked different from that of today. Israel, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia did not exist. Most of the Middle East still rested under the drowsy and negligent sway of the Ottoman Empire. The Middle East, a conglomerate of artificially created states, became what it is today because the European powers willed it so.

This is the darkest period in the history of Islam. Iraq faces the full might of the United States and is threatened with destruction. This, in spite of the fact that Baghdad presents no clear and present danger to its neighbours, and none to the US or Britain. What is at stake is not an imminent military or terrorist threat but the economic imperatives of US growth. Iraq has 112 billion barrels of oil-deposits, or roughly 11 per cent of the world’s proven supply. That is more oil than the resources of Europe and South America put together and more than Africa and the Asia-Pacific region combined. That oil has global strategic, political and economic significance.

The temptation to grab Iraq’s oil must be irresistible. Iraq must suffer because it has oil and it has Israel as an enemy. What is worse, it is Muslim. North Korea has admitted it has nuclear capability but it is not threatened as Iraq is. If Saddam did not have oil, he could torture his citizens to his heart’s content. Other leaders in the Islamic world do it everyday with the blessings of George W. Bush.

If Iraq is invaded and Saddam toppled, the lines drawn in the Middle East by old European imperial powers will be redrawn by the world’s newest imperial power, the United States. The radical transformation of the Middle East being considered by the Bush administration will be the biggest political change since the notorious Sykes-Picot treaty in which victorious Britain and France carved up the Ottoman Empire.

Iraq with its vast oil resources will be placed under permanent US military rule. Afghanistan is no longer a sovereign, independent country. Pakistan has got temporary reprieve by succumbing to American pressure and extending ‘unstinted cooperation’ to the US in its war against terror in Afghanistan. All other governments in the Islamic world, deemed unfriendly to the US or Israel, will be replaced by pro-US and pro-Israel pliant governments.

There is a dry wind blowing throughout the Islamic world and the parched grasses wait for the spark. Once the match is lit, the blaze will spread like wildfire. The entire Islamic world will then find itself in the eye of the storm. The political system fabricated by Kitchener, Lloyd George and Churchill in 1922 will collapse like a house of cards and go up in flames. There should be no illusion about the sort of Islamic landscape that America is destined to find when it embarks on a war against Iraq. Nothing would convince the Muslim world that it would be a just war. It would be seen as an imperial reach into the Muslim world, a favour to Israel and a way for the United States to secure control over Iraq’s oil.

“The United States has gone mad”, wrote John Le Carre’, expressing the sentiments of millions of people all over the world. “Americans entered one of the periods of historical madness, but this is the worst I can remember: Worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam war”.

FEW Muslims in Britain can have read about the discovery of ricin poison in London’s Wood Green, or the murder soon after of DC Stephen Oake in Manchester, without experiencing dread and foreboding. All those arrested in connection with these incidents were Muslim. As a community that has been viewed with suspicion ever since the attacks of 9/11, this ‘proof’ of Islamic fundamentalism within Britain will only make them more vulnerable to suspicion, abuse and violence.

Who is to blame? Is Tony Blair’s government engaged, as some critics claim, in a war against Islam? Is it manufacturing an internal Muslim terrorist threat to justify an attack on Iraq? Is the media — especially the tabloid press — guilty of stirring up Islamophobia? Or is the problem on the Muslim side — one of paranoia? Could it be that British Muslims are guilty of the extremism and terrorism that those on the right accuse them of? The answer to all these questions, paradoxically, is both yes and no.

Take New Labour first. From 9/11 to this day, Tony Blair and his government have been at pains to stress that the war against terrorism is not a war against Islam. The prime minister has repeatedly praised Islam as a religion of tolerance and peace. Following the raid on Finsbury Park Mosque, a Downing Street aide was quick to explain that: “The war on terror is not about Islam. The overwhelming majority of Muslims in this country are law-abiding and make a huge contribution to our society.”

Thanks in no small measure to the tone set by the British government, British society has not seen the kind of intensely negative — often violent — backlash against Muslims that took place in America. Officially, Britain remains a multi-cultural society in which Muslim rights and sensibilities are respected.

The problem lies in the sub-text and implications of the government’s response to terrorism, especially the introduction of new legislation. The Terrorism Act of 2001 allows foreign nationals to be detained for long periods without any formal charges being brought against them. Though applicable in equal measure to all detainees, — irrespective of nationality and religion — its ‘victims in practice are mostly Muslims.

Perception is also a problem in the case of the Finsbury Park Mosque raid. One perception — that of the government — is that it was a necessary operation, conducted with as much sensitivity as possible. (Officers wore plastic bags over their shoes and did not enter any of the mosque’s prayer halls.) The alternative perception — shared by many British Muslims — is that it was unnecessarily heavy-handed (150 police officers and a helicopter in the middle of the night to arrest seven people and seize one stun gun, one imitation gun and one CS gas canister is a bit dramatic). Furthermore, they cannot comprehend why mosques are being targeted when, at the height of the Northern Ireland troubles, churches remained sacrosanct.

Even more disturbing are attempts — less by the government than the opposition Conservatives — to link the so-called Muslim terrorism in Britain with the issue of asylum. More precisely, attempts to use the threat of terrorism to justify a hard-line approach to asylum seekers. Following DC Oake’s murder, Tory leader Iain Duncan-Smith urged: “the key to fighting international terrorists would be to detain all asylum-seekers entering the country in secure centres”. To assume that all asylum seekers are potential terrorists is both ludicrous and dangerous. When British Muslims see leading mainstream politicians making such assumptions, they have a reason to worry.

The British government’s solid support for George Bush as he gears up for a second Gulf War is the final ‘proof’ for British Muslims that they and their faith are the real targets of the war against terror.

The media does little to erase that perception. A Daily Mail journalist recently described Britain’s Muslim community as a ‘fifth column’. Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Masri, the radical preacher at Finsbury Park, has been demonized in the press. Blind in one eye and possessing prosthetic hooks instead of hands (blown off in Afghanistan) he makes an ideal caricature for the tabloids. His views too — he described 9/11 as ‘a towering day in history’ — have been given much publicity. Broadsheets like the Guardian and Independent do strive to distinguish between the peaceful Muslim majority and extremist preachers like Abu Hamza, but this does little to erode the negative impact of the tabloid onslaught on Islam.

So much for blaming others: what of the Muslim community itself? Could some of its current difficulties be due to its own flaws and weaknesses? It has become almost a cliche to say that the majority of Muslims in Britain are tolerant and peace-loving and only a small minority are intolerant and militant. But where did that minority come from and why haven’t they been tackled? After all, they discredit the law-abiding majority in the eyes of the Britons.

Taking the origin issue first, some of Britain’s most extremist Muslims can be traced back to foreign trouble spots, notably Algeria and Egypt. But many are British-born and bred. They have been failed by an ethnic community reluctant to integrate with mainstream society, and by religious leaders who lack the knowledge and vision to minister to second-generation immigrant believers. It is a lethal combination, producing young people totally alienated from the culture around them and immersed in a distorted, bigoted interpretation of Islam.

The issue of identity v. integration, holding on to your on culture and traditions while adapting to a new society, is a constant dilemma for immigrant communities — especially Muslims whose values are so different from those of the West. The majority manage to find a happy medium between being Muslim and being British. Some resolve the identity crisis by giving up all their inherited customs and traditions and totally embracing westerns lifestyles. But a few — the extremist minority — go in the opposite direction, totally rejecting everything western. Such people form a fertile recruiting ground for charismatic leaders like Abu Hamza.

Those on the extremist fringe might be a minority but they are highly motivated and organized. This gives them a presence far greater than their numbers warrant. By contrast, the moderate majority is also the silent majority, lacking unity and coherence. Mainstream Muslim leaders have justifiably been criticized for failing to combat the extremists in their midst. To give just one example, the Finsbury Park Mosque used to be dominated by moderates. As Abu Hamza and his radical ‘Supporters of Shariah’ group took it over, the moderates moved elsewhere. It is the Charity Commission, not the Mosque’s board of trustees or the Muslim Council of Britain, that is now taking action to stop Hamza’s radical preaching from the mosque. Zaki Badawi, a renowned scholar and former Imam of the Regent’s Park Mosque, laments: “I blame my own community because they have the ability to remedy things”.

Whatever the causes — government policies, opposition politicking, tabloid sensationalism, the internal crisis of identity, community lethargy — the end result is that it is very hard to be a Muslim in Britain today. The solution to their problems is clear: justice, moderation, tolerance, education, effort. Sadly, implementing it is far less so.

WHENEVER there is a new crisis with North Korea, many Americans and South Koreans ask if it isn’t time for the 37,000 US troops based in South Korea to pack up and go home.

After all, American troops have now been stationed in South Korea since the end of World War II, over half a century ago. In 1953, at the end of the bloody Korean war, South Korea was ravaged, militarily weak, and poor as India, with per capita net income of $600.

But today, with per capita income at $9,000, a robust industrial base, and powerful armed forces of 686,000, South Korea would hardly seem to need a permanent US military garrison to protect it from truculent North Korea. Having been a guest of the crack ROK (Republic of Korea) 1st Infantry Division up on the DMZ, I can personally attest to the toughness, professionalism, and combat readiness of South Korea’s soldiers.

So why does the US still maintain an army headquarters, naval units, the 2nd Infantry Division, and two Air Force wings with 90 combat aircraft in South Korea? Particularly when their presence causes friction with South Koreans, and occasionally dangerous incidents, like the recent accidental deaths of two school girls, which sparked anti-American riots across the nation.

Geopolitics, that much maligned science, is the answer. When I attended Georgetown University’s Foreign Service School in Washington DC during the early 1960s, my class was the last ever to study 19th-century German and French geopolitical thought — geopolitics being the science of how geography influences strategic affairs and history. After us, le diluge. Geography vanished from schools and universities, leaving ensuing generations of Americans shockingly ignorant of the outside world.

Korea, we were taught, was one of the world’s five most strategic nations, along with South Africa, the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, and Egypt. The pivotal Korean Peninsula dominates North Asia, and the air and maritime approaches to northern China, Japan, and Russia’s Far East.

So long as North Korea maintains a 1.1 million man army, huge numbers of heavy artillery and missiles, at least two nuclear weapons, and trumpets the ruling Kim dynasty’s ‘holy mission’ to unite Korea under communist rule, any major withdrawal by US forces from South Korea would likely precipitate an invasion by the North. After all, if President George Bush can ‘liberate’ Iraq, why can’t North Korea’s ‘Dear Leader’ Kim Il Jong ‘liberate’ South Korea?

If Korea were to peacefully reunite — possibly through the collapse of North Korea, what South Koreans dread as ‘unexpected reunification’ — then there would be no more reason for US troops to remain. China, which sees itself as Korea’s big brother and defender of Koreans, a feeling many Koreans reciprocate, would demand the immediate withdrawal of US forces.

American military forces in South Korea play a less obvious but even more important geopolitical role. They garrison an advanced bastion that gives militarily feeble Japan a sense of security.

In fact, the US has long stationed 107,000 troops in North Asia precisely to ensure that Japan does not resume its old role as a major military and regional power. US security guarantees to Japan are the lynchpin of North Asia’s strategic architecture.

If US troops left South Korea, they would come under mounting pressure to also leave Japan (including Okinawa). This, in turn, would remove the shield between Japan and China: the old confrontation between Beijing and Tokyo would likely resume. China has tacitly agreed to the continuing presence of US forces in North Asia as the best way to keep old foe Japan declawed and inoffensive. In spite of its growing power, China still has an exaggerated fear of what it routinely blasts as ‘reborn Japanese militarism.’ Just this week, in a by now yearly ritual of anti-Japanese hysteria, China, South Korea, and the Philippines denounced Tokyo for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s annual visit to the national war shrine.

A US withdrawal from Korea would force Japan into a politically agonizing reappraisal of its pacifist defence policies. Pressure would grow for Tokyo to build offensive forces, an anti-missile system and, probably, nuclear weapons. Japanese, once a proud warrior people, might even wake from their comfortable sleep of 50 years and decide they no longer can accept being an economic giant but military and strategic midget.

A united Korea would also produce a potentially dangerous military and industrial rival to Japan, very likely nuclear armed and closely allied to China. Only intense US pressure in the 1960s stopped South Korea from going nuclear. US troops help keep Korea divided, which Japan greatly desires.

South Korea and Japan are the forward bases from which the US controls the Pacific Ocean and projects its power onto the Asian mainland. In Europe, Britain and Germany play a similar role as stepping stones of American strategic domination. And most recently, Pakistan appears slated to become America’s strategic bastion in South Asia.

Withdrawal of US forces from South Korea could undermine the strategic architecture of North Asia, producing unpredictable consequences no one in the region cares to chance. Better, all have concluded, the status quo (what the US calls ‘stability’) than the unknown. All, that is, except for ‘Dear Leader’ Kim in North Korea.—Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2003

GIVEN that well over two-thirds of the countries on the planet are now democracies, how come none of the 18 Arabic-speaking countries is genuinely democratic?

There are some democracies like Egypt where the elections are always rigged, a couple of half-way democracies like Jordan where the king still has the last word, and one brave experiment in tiny Qatar, but that’s it.

Much of the rage and violence that disfigures the Arab world is connected with this democratic deficit. And it is a problem specific to the 300 million people of the Arab world, not to the broader world of Islam: more than half of the billion Muslims who are not Arabs, from Turkey to Indonesia, live in functioning democracies. Why have the Arabs been left so far behind?

Part of the reason is the curse of oil, which has led foreigners to meddle non-stop in the Arab world. Certainly the half-century of confrontation with Israel, marked by repeated Arab defeats, also played a role. But rather than trying to answer the question, maybe we should note instead that the situation is probably about to change, because at last there is uncensored news available in Arabic.

Once information starts to flow freely, it’s hard to stop democracy. Consider former East Germany, whose Communist rulers were unable to block West German television broadcasts. Seventy percent of the East German population could pick up uncensored news in their own language with only a twisted coat-hanger for an antenna — and the television told them all the things their rulers didn’t want them to know.

The Arab world has never had that kind of access to uncensored news and free debate — at least, not until five years ago, when al-Jazeera went on the air. It’s only a single television channel, but it broadcasts by satellite 24 hours a day, and can be picked up by anybody with a dish almost anywhere in the Arab world.

Al-Jazeera has 600 journalists operating in all the Arab capitals (except those where they have been expelled), plus London, Paris, New York and Washington, and it has single-handedly transformed the nature of political debate everywhere. It has interviewed Israeli cabinet ministers live. It has broadcast tapes sent to it by Osama bin Laden. It has allowed Saudi Arabian dissidents to criticise the monarchy. It has even given air time to critics of the Qatar government where it is based. This may seem like no big thing. After all, it’s only one channel, and you have to be rich enough to own a dish to get it. But that is to misunderstand the nature of the media environment. When a major outlet starts to tell the truth, even if only one Arab in ten sees it (al-Jazeera claims a regular audience of 35 million), the word gets around very fast.

Al-Jazeera grew out of a failed attempt by the British Broadcasting Corporation to create an Arabic-language TV service. It was a joint venture with a Saudi company that tried to censor a documentary hostile to the Saudi regime, so the BBC pulled out — leaving behind a talented team of Arab TV journalists who had got a whiff of editorial freedom. So they went to Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the British-educated ruler of the small Gulf state of Qatar, and pitched the idea of al-Jazeera to him.

They picked the right man. Only recently come to power, he was starting to introduce democracy in his own tiny sheikhdom, and was so attracted by the idea of providing uncensored news to the whole Arab world that he agreed to bankroll the channel to the tune of $150 million over five years. It still isn’t making a profit — partly because a lot of local companies, and some multinational ones too, have been instructed not to advertise on al-Jazeera — but in five years it has transformed the political environment in the Middle East.

That may seem an exaggeration, since there has been no major change yet in any of the regimes that run the region. But as Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch said ten years ago (to his everlasting mortification, for it wrecked a lucrative deal he was making in China), direct broadcasting from satellites is “an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere.” The free flow of information opens people’s minds, and then change can happen.

“I think that if al-Jazeera had been there 15 years ago, there would have been no 11 September,” said marketing director Ali Mohammad Kamal three months ago. If it is still in business 15 years from now, there will be a lot fewer dictatorships and absolute monarchies in the Arab world.—Copyright

IT HAS consistently been part of governmental strategy to weaken public confidence in the institution of the judiciary. An independent judiciary and an authoritarian government cannot coexist.

Thus, every government in Pakistan has attempted to undermine judicial independence according to its capacity to do so. With the best legal brains behind them, the military governments have excelled in this. Recent events have illustrated this phenomenon. When President Musharraf’s statement about an ‘unconventional war’ appeared in the press, the entire governmental machinery geared into action and issued statement after statement contradicting the impression that it implied a nuclear war. He himself appeared on television trying to remove that impression.

As against this, a most disturbing report appeared in a leading national daily some days ago about fresh oath of judges of the superior courts, stating that some of the existing judges would not be invited to take a fresh oath under the Constitution. Strangely enough, the veracity of that report has neither been officially denied not confirmed, with the result that judges of superior courts have been needlessly made a subject of speculation and gossip.

The judiciary and the legal fraternity must forestall any plan to remove judges by the artful device of not inviting some of them for a fresh oath. If there is something against a judge the proper recourse lies before the Supreme Judicial Council.

As far as judicial oath is concerned, Articles 178 and 194 of the Constitution provide that before entering upon office, the judges of the Supreme Court and the High Court shall take oath as prescribed in the Third Schedule of the Constitution. Under the prescribed oath, a judge swears that he will discharge his duties and perform his functions honestly, faithfully and in accordance with the Constitution of Pakistan. He further swears that he will preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.

When Gen Musharraf took power in 1999, he issued a Proclamation of Emergency whereby the Constitution of Pakistan was placed in abeyance. He also issued the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) No. 1 which provided that notwithstanding the abeyance of the provisions of the Constitution, Pakistan shall, as nearly as possible, be governed in accordance with the Constitution. This was subject to any order made or to be made by the general. It further provided that all judges of the superior courts would continue to perform their functions and duties. They were not required to take a fresh oath to uphold the Provisional Constitutional Order.

On January 25, 2000, Gen. Musharraf promulgated the Oath of Office (Judges) Order 2000 (Order No. 1 of 2000). This provided that a person holding office immediately before the commencement of this Order as Chief Justice/Judge of the Supreme Court, High Court or Federal Shariat Court shall cease to hold that office if he is not given or does not take oath in the form set out in the Schedule.

It further provided that a judge of the superior court appointed after January 25, 2000, shall take oath in the form set out in the Schedule. The Order also provided that a judge who has taken such oath shall be bound by the provisions of this order, and the Proclamation of Emergency and PCO 1 of 1999, as amended from time to time.

The oath prescribed under this order required the judge to swear that he would discharge his duties and perform his functions honestly ad faithfully in accordance with the Proclamation of Emergency of 1999 and PCO 1 of 1999 as amended. Thus, unlike the original oath under the Constitution, there was no allegiance to the Constitution of Pakistan. Upholding the Constitution of Pakistan ceased to be part of judicial oath and functions.

The promulgation of this order triggered a judicial crisis and five Judges of the Supreme Court refused to take oath under this order and ceased to hold office as a consequence.

Of the present judges of the Supreme Court, only two were elevated to the Supreme Court prior to January, 2000. The Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Sheikh Riaz Ahmed, and the senior judge, Justice Munir A. Sheikh, were already in the Supreme Court and had also taken oath under the Constitution of Pakistan at the time of their elevation to the apex court. The other judges were all appointed after January 25, 2000, and have taken oath under Order No. 1 of 2000 and not the Constitution of Pakistan.

On August 21, 2002, Gen Musharraf promulgated the Legal Framework Order, 2002, (LFO) for the purpose of reviving the Constitution of Pakistan, incorporating a number of amendments made to the Constitution. The Constitution was amended by General Musharraf extensively. It also provided that the Chief Executive can make further amendments if needed. However, the LFO made no amendment in the text of the oath prescribed under the Constitution as it stood on October 12, 1999.

On the eve of the October 10 general elections, Gen Musharraf exercised his power under the LFO and amended the Constitution once again and extended the age of retirement of the judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts by three years.

The age of retirement of Supreme Court judges was raised to 68 years while the High Court judges were to retire at 65. It is a coincidence that when the general had taken over power in government, the Supreme Court had also granted him a similar term of three years.

With the transition in October 2002, Gen Musharraf took oath of the office of the president under the Constitution of Pakistan. The governors were also administered oath under the Constitution of Pakistan. However, so far there has been no fresh oath for the judges of superior courts under the Constitution of Pakistan. The government has argued that the oath administered under Order 2001, is deemed to have been an oath under the Constitution. After realizing the weakness of its argument, the government has not pressed the issue further.

In view of the foregoing, it is imperative that all the learned judges of the superior courts be immediately administered oath under the Constitution. It would be anomalous that despite revival of the Constitution, the institution which is bound to determine the legality of all governmental actions on the touchstone of the Constitution remains bound by the controversial PCO and not the Constitution.