KARACHI, March 8: A former Supreme Court judge, Justice Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim, has criticized plunder of democratic institutions and urged people to "speak out against arbitrary rule before it is too late."
Speaking at the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology on Monday, the former judge brought the role of superior judiciary at crucial juncture under scrutiny and observed that there had been no transfer of power, but only an arrangement between the military and a set of politicians.
He said it was important to see that an individual was not given the power to amend the Constitution because this was a negation of the Quaid-i-Azam's emphasis that elected representatives of the people alone had the right to frame or amend the Constitution.
"We have not learnt lessons from history," he observed, and questioned the verdicts which allowed an individual to play around with the Constitution and validated his acts.
Dilating on law, Constitution and superior judiciary, Justice Ebrahim said: "Where law ends, anarchy begins... Law is the essence of life... Without law, no meaningful existence is possible... No progress is possible without law. You cannot conceive, without law, a civilized society."
He regretted that after more than 50 years of freedom, law remained prostrate and abandoned in Pakistan and the nation had been made to march on the road to anarchy.
Justice Ebrahim traced the history of the negation of Constitution, military interventions, and the eventual validation of such acts by the apex court. He recalled that the Supreme Court had held in the famous Asma Jilani case that no Martial Law of the type, imposed by two previous generals, could ever be imposed in Pakistan.
The people's sovereignty must always remain supreme and the only Martial Law that would be acceptable in law is one in aid of civil power to enable it to maintain law and order. It was loudly proclaimed that the holy Quran negates absolute power vested in a single individual.
Justice Ebrahim also questioned the apex court's validation of Ziaul Haq and others' rule by invoking 'doctrine of necessity' and claimed that military rulers had no respect for the superior judiciary.
He said the judgment in Zafar Ali Shah's case had badly hurt the country. In the context of post-Oct 12, 1999 situation, he said that unfettered power to amend the Constitution could not be conferred on a 'chief executive' even during the transitory period.
The LFO, he added, had changed the whole character of the Constitution. In this regard, the justice discussed implications of General Musharraf's proclamations.
He regretted that those who had taken oath to defend the Constitution had to validate the interventions and allow an individual to made amendments to the Constitution. Justice Ebrahim believed that the whole lot was responsible for the situation.
