| 25 February 2004 | Wednesday | 04 Muharram 1425 |
The bane of karo-kari
Preserving the past
At the recently concluded conference of the South Asian Regional Cooperation in Law (Saarclaw) in Karachi, jurists advocated meaningful judicial interventions to overcome a number of problem areas affecting social justice, human rights and individual freedom in Saarc member countries.
Speakers at various sessions said that this was necessary to do away with deficiencies in law and legal systems, to ensure good governance, to develop corporate culture, to promote respect for international law, to safeguard the freedom of expression, to combat crime and to protect the rights of women and children in South Asia.
Judicial intervention and activism are not a new phenomenon in South Asia. The Indian Supreme Court has taken the lead in this area with a number of instances where it has stepped in on its own or has set aside legal complications when petitioners have come before it seeking justice.
In some cases that has involved reviewing decisions made by lower courts. One example is the appeal admitted by the SC against the Gujarat High Court judgement in the Best Bakery case in the aftermath of the communal carnage in Gujarat state in 2002.
Then there have been instances where the SC has acted suo motu in support of public interest. An example of this is when it set a deadline for public transport vehicles in Delhi to convert to gas by 2001 in a bid to control pollution. The government had no option but to enforce this ruling.
Judicial intervention is based on the premise that injustices are commonly perpetrated in our societies and the victims may not always be in a position to take recourse to legal means to get justice.
This is where the judges can step in to take notice of the extraordinary circumstances. Other Saarc countries need to follow the lead provided by the Indian Supreme Court in this regard.
In Pakistan, for example, the bane of honour killing in different parts of the country as well as other blatant acts of human rights violation need to be legally and socially fought.
Courts must ensure that the law is being upheld and where there is a transgression, due action has to be taken. There have been instances where judicial activism has come into play, as in the Shehla Zia case in 1994. But a lot more needs to be done in this regard.
Courts need to be more proactive despite their obvious limitation in the form of an overload of cases on the judicial system. The judiciary must be seen to be protecting the rights of the citizen. There have been instances where the Pakistan Supreme Court intervened in the public interest and in some cases took suo motu cognizance of injustices being perpetrated.
It may be noted that the Constitution of Pakistan empowers the Supreme Court to directly take up cases involving infringement of human rights. One wishes that this privilege is pursued more vigorously.
The chief justices expressed the view that judicial intervention and activism could be possible only when this had active support of their own. If that is the case, then one could take their endorsement as a signal for more judicial activism in Saarc countries in the years to come.
A significant aspect of this activism must be in the form of greater judicial interest in seeing to it that public policies and actions are basically oriented towards promoting and safeguarding the interests of the common citizen and not those of the privileged sections of society.
The bane of karo-kari
The addition of four more cases of karo-kari to the long list of honour killings across the country has made President Musharraf's recent condemnation of the crime appear little more than an exercise in rhetoric.
Even as some politicians and others call for legislation against honour killings, few steps have been taken to actively discourage this primitive and grisly practice that is firmly entrenched in all the four provinces of the country.
The crime stems from the evils of feudalism and its tribal variant, and with many feudal lords occupying the highest echelons of power, there has been only lip-service criticism of honour killings that continue to cast a pall of horror on the lives of many rural folk.
More than "crimes of passion", incidents of honour killings can be termed premeditated murder linked to sinister motives involving land and money.
While the government twiddles its thumbs over how to root out this scourge and to tackle parliamentarians and senators who are reluctant to discuss an issue that could undermine their positions in a feudal or tribal setting, many innocent individuals continue to be killed in the name of honour.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has yet to release its official figures for the number of honour-related crimes committed last year, but other surveys indicate that the figure exceeds 1,000. This is likely to be a conservative estimate as many incidents - up to 70 per cent, according to some sources - are not reported, and are not likely to be as the local police are often hand in glove with the perpetrators of the crime.
Instead of showing its usual hesitation when it comes to dealing with issues linked either to religion or to feudal and tribal practices, the government must immediately act on its promises and do whatever it takes to crack down on the crime and make an example of all those who are guilty of it.
Preserving the past
A UNESCO-UNDP report has revealed the obvious about the dilapidated and crumbling state of Peshawar's walled city. Haphazard construction of new houses often in violation of building bye-laws, corrosive effect of emissions from smoke-emitting rickshaws and a complete failure by conservationists to involve local residents have meant that the centuries-old architectural heritage of the city is rapidly dwindling and might be lost forever.
In fact, the case of other historically and culturally significant cities in Pakistan is no different where many structures of the past have either been razed to the ground (to make way for commercial plazas and the like) or are crumbling because of unchecked environmental pollution.
Take the case of Lahore: there the assault on the city's rich built heritage from rising pollution and unauthorized new buildings is worsened by decisions taken by local officials allowing multinational companies to host music shows in buildings that are several centuries old.
These structures are more in need of careful preservation than to be used for holding concerts and such other shows. One argument in favour of preserving such structures is that they have immense cultural value and tourist potential.
There is another, more important reason, why buildings such as those found inside the walled city of the NWFP capital need to be preserved and that has to do with recognizing and acknowledging our past and using it to enrich our present lives.
Constructing new buildings for residential or commercial purposes is fine but such development activities should not be allowed to come up on the ruins of architecturally unique or historically significant buildings.
The local administration should limit the movement of rickshaws inside the walled city or ask the drivers to use unadulterated petrol to limit the level of pollution.