Speaker’s ill-advised and ill-timed ruling

WHAT precise motive or compulsion the National Assembly speaker had in giving a categorical ruling on the controversial question of the status of the Legal Framework Order is difficult to comprehend. In an out-of-the-blue move on Saturday, Chaudhry Amir Hussain decreed that the LFO was part of the Constitution and that the basic law had been “rightly amended” on the basis of the Supreme Court verdict in the Zafar Ali Shah case. That the ruling was blatantly pro-government is beside the point here. The more pertinent point about the speaker’s ruling is that in formulating it, he has overstretched the meaning and purpose of the Supreme Court verdict legitimizing the military takeover of October 12, 1999, giving the military regime a three-year period to complete its task and requiring it to hand over power to an elected government at the end of that period. The verdict also allowed the military rulers to make such legal and constitutional changes that were absolutely necessary for the purpose of day-to-day administration. That enabling power was obviously meant strictly for contingencies in the domain of normal governance and not as a blanket authorization for effecting fundamental legal and constitutional changes — which is precisely how speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain has chosen to interpret the meaning and intent of the Supreme Court verdict in giving his ruling on the legal status of the LFO.

This, at a time when the government and the opposition are locked in negotiations over the controversial amendment package, and even though they have not yet succeeded in settling the matter, the talks have not at least been formally called off. There is posturing on both sides. The ruling party continues to maintain that the LFO is already part of the Constitution, while the opposition has stuck to its publicly stated position that the LFO needs to be ratified by parliament before it can become part of the basic law. The opposition is also, quite often, a bit vitriolic in its utterances, and there are hints that it could even launch a countrywide protest to force the government to change its rigid stance on the issue. However, the threats of agitation appear to be part of the opposition’s pressure tactics rather than a seriously meant political option.

The LFO is not an issue merely between the ruling party and the opposition; it is a national issue in which lawyers’ associations, intellectuals, human rights activists and political elements outside parliament are equally involved. While criticizing the enactment of the LFO, they have called for a compromise on the contentious clauses so that it could be ratified by parliament and thus become part of the Constitution. However, for the National Assembly speaker to give a ruling on the issue — and in such categorical terms — at this time is really puzzling. In no way does it help solve the controversial issue or lessen the gravity of the crisis. Instead, the speaker’s largely uncalled-for and partisan ruling could perhaps heighten the confrontation between the government and the opposition and make things that much more difficult for the nation.

Interestingly, the speaker’s ruling is in response to a point of order raised by opposition MNA Liaquat Baloch as far back as November 21 on the LFO issue. For more than six months, the speaker had chosen to remain quiet about it. However, on Saturday he came out with a three-page statement in which he has used a 1985 ruling by the then speaker, Fakhr Imam, in support of his own ruling. That ruling was equally questionable, in fact immoral, for it had upheld Ziaul Haq’s constitutional amendments, which too had been imposed on the nation illegally.

In giving his ruling over the weekend, the speaker forgot that the matter was not one of procedure but involved issues of fundamental importance as the basic structure of the Constitution, the power equation between the president and the prime minister, the sovereignty of parliament and, above all, the primacy of the democratic system of government the country is to have. For argument’s sake, even if the speaker had to respond to Liaquat Baloch’s point of order, he could have deferred the issue by pointing out that a ruling on such a contentious and sensitive issue at this time would only complicate matters and in no way help solve the crisis over the LFO. By ignoring these considerations, the speaker has shown a gross lack of understanding of the grave political crisis which has the nation in its grip at the moment. The issue has not been resolved, the two sides remain poles apart, but the speaker has come out the poorer as a result of his ill-advised ruling.

And now in Makkah

SATURDAY night’s action by the Saudi security forces against terrorists hiding in a Makkah apartment brought to the fore the dangerous dimensions of the simmering conflict in the kingdom. Among those killed in the action were five terrorists and two Saudi security personnel. Saudi authorities are not sure whether the deceased terrorists had anything to do with last month’s bombing of foreigners’ residential compounds in capital Riyadh. The deadly explosives recovered from the Makkah apartment were likely not meant to be used against non-Muslim foreigners because there are none in the holy city. They were hidden there either to be used later against foreign targets in nearby Jeddah or to cause panic by striking an official Saudi target in the holy city. That two Chadians, an Egyptian and two Saudis comprised the group of five terrorists killed in the raid, points to a pan-Arab nexus so that Al Qaeda’s involvement cannot be ruled out.

The American-led invasion and occupation of Iraq were bound to cause resentment and anger in a region as prone to conflict as the Middle East. Arab nationalists, who find themselves and their ideals increasingly becoming an object of American wrath, are not likely to take the humiliation lightly. Coupled with the Israeli suppression of the Palestinians, this explains a rising wave of Anti-Americanism sweeping across the Arab world. This has become apparent from attacks in recent months against Western, and more particularly against American targets and against those of Arab government — from Yemen to Morocco — which are perceived to be in alliance with the American agenda. The Arab world risks bearing the brunt of more such attacks in the future because of the absence of democratic institutions or a mechanism to check autocratic tendencies of their rulers. The resulting polarization between the ruling monarchies / oligarchies and the virtually disenfranchised Arab masses was never before this acute — and apparent. As the US goes about pursuing its interests in Iraq, there is a growing need for the EU, Russia, China and the UN to assert their positions more forcefully so as to restrain Washington from plunging the entire region into utter chaos. A destabilized Middle East will have political and economic consequences reaching far beyond the region.