Shallow ostentation

The Supreme Court has over-ridden a Punjab law that permitted the serving of one dish at weddings. The court held that a province could not legislate in contravention of a federal law, in this case the Marriage (Prohibition of Ostentatious Displays and Wasteful Expenses) Ordinance, promulgated in 2000. At the beginning of last year, the Punjab government had decided to permit the serving of one dish at 'valima' receptions, and it is this permission that the SC has now cancelled.

But while its verdict is based on technical grounds, that a province cannot go against a federal law still in existence, the court has also drawn attention to the spirit underlying the 2000 ordinance -- reducing ostentation and the burden imposed on families of moderate means, especially the middle class, who feel forced by custom and peer pressure to spend extravagantly on marriages.

Laws cannot overnight change social attitudes, but they can provide those who want to break the mould or are unable to meet the demands placed on them with a legal prop. Such people might now be helped. The 'one-dish' idea has been experimented with off and on during all these past years. It did provide, in theory, a middle course, both preventing outrageous expenditure and satisfying the emotional needs of families to make weddings joyous occasions for the clan.

However, experience has shown that the 'one-dish' loophole could easily be exploited by passing off additions as necessary accoutrements. This left the law being observed more in the breach. The other problem concerns the dual standards marking implementation of all laws: the more resourceful could get away with huge banquets within their houses while those forced to hold wedding receptions at public places and daring to offer a little more than one dish were susceptible to victimization by police officials lurking in the shadows outside 'shadi' halls and looking for a bit on the side.

This problem remains, even with the SC's decision. Who will dare check a minister or parliamentarian holding a lavish marriage feast in his feudal fiefdom? Every effort should be made to uphold the law uniformly; otherwise it will lose all force.

Nor is this a question only of wedding meals and marriage expenses. Shallow ostentation permeates every level of our lifestyle. The people are less to blame in this than those who wish to lead them. The worst possible example of unnecessary 'band and bandobast' is provided by the government and our politicians. The perks and privileges that go with public office are wholly inconsistent with the state of our economy and the norms of a modern, civilized democratic state.

In fact, the big cars, palatial houses, the comforts officially sanctioned for our civil and military bureaucrats display a lack of confidence in the latter's ability to exercise authority without reliance on superficial symbols of power. Our legislators too have yet to prove that they put in enough work on behalf of their constituents to justify the allowances they get. All of them, military men, senior civil servants, political leaders, frequently travel abroad and see how mature democracies work and yet remain untouched by the experience.

It is a measure of our indifference to public perceptions that not a single plausible explanation has been offered so far about our present huge federal cabinet or for the failure of ministers to publicly declare their assets. In developing countries in particular, a heavy responsibility rests on the leaders of society to set standards of austerity, probity and simple living.

Juvenile injustice

In a shocking reminder, the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child reported at a meeting in Lahore the other day that over 1,500 children were languishing in jails in Punjab alone. Their confinement, often with hardened criminals and convicted murderers, is a clear violation of the Juvenile Justice Ordinance of 2000 which rules that under-age prisoners awaiting trial must be housed in separate barracks where there are no adult prisoners. As things stand currently, the number of such borstal jails is too limited to house all the juvenile prisoners.

In many cases, juvenile prisoners remain in jail for want of proper legal representation, since many come from impoverished families or are runaways from home. Circumstances such as lack of adult supervision or abusive parents or teachers are the main reasons why children run away from home. Unfortunately, the legal system in Pakistan is such that instead of rehabilitating them after they commit minor offences by facilitating their return home to their families, it further marginalizes them, eventually turning many into criminals. One reason for this is that the courts tend to treat juvenile offenders as adults, in the process passing stiff sentences against them as if they were adults.

Rehabilitation is important and it is for this reason that minors undergoing trial should be housed separately from adult and hardened prisoners and that their cases should be conducted expeditiously. Since most come from poor backgrounds and cannot afford lawyers, the government should provide them free legal service. The provincial governments should ensure that all provisions of the ordinance are followed strictly, especially the provision that juvenile prisoners should be kept in isolation from hardened criminals in prison.

Building separate jails for juveniles may be well and good but what is perhaps more important and bears scrutiny is the question why there are so many children in prison. The government must order a review of all juvenile cases pending before the courts and those involved in petty crimes should see their trials speeded up. Also, judges, especially in the lower courts, should adopt a more compassionate approach when dealing with underage offenders.

Primitive and inhuman

Voices have been raised against the Sindh government's move to extend legal cover to the jirga system prevailing in the interior, and that in its present form it can be seen as a dispenser of tribal and feudal justice. While there is no doubt that jirgas are time-tested mechanisms of speedy justice and of satisfactory arbitration in local disputes, there are certain negative aspects that have caused human rights groups to rightly call for their abolition.

In addition to their virtually being a parallel legal system, often conflicting with the law of the land, there have been many instances where the decisions taken by a jirga have not been in conformity with the precepts of true justice. This observation is borne out by the numerous occasions on which jirgas have misused their powers by condemning men and women to death for allegedly indulging in illicit relations, and, in at least one case, going so far as to sanction gang-rape.

If Pakistan is to enter the ranks of the world's more civilized nations, it will have to do away with this system and all its attendant feudal and tribal evils. However, considering that this system is deeply entrenched in the interior, and that the normal judicial process in the country is slow and not easily accessible to everyone, it would be difficult to root out jirgas all at once, even though the high court banned them earlier this year.

Our decision-makers - including the landed elite sitting in our assemblies who, regardless of the inherent contradiction, appear to believe in both legal and tribal justice - must come up with a mechanism to regulate jirgas and bring them in line with Pakistan's laws. This would mean a strict check on tribal councils by state authorities and penalties for those of their members whose judgments are contrary to legal norms and principles.