DOING of justice is one of the key features of the Quranic teachings. It has been specifically termed as akin to piety (5:8). Its importance and practice have been emphasised in several ways. One is when the Quran directly enjoins the believers to do justice and refrain from doing injustice (16:90).

The other is when the Quran says that Allah loves those who do justice (5:42) and warns those who carry the burden of the sins of inequities (injustices) (20:111) with a categorical declaration that for unjust there will be no helpers. The third is when the Quran enjoins the believers to be firm and foremost in doing justice for the sake of Allah (4:135). Normally whatever a person does, he does it for his own sake. But through this verse the Quran enjoins the believers to do justice for the sake of Allah which shows how important doing of justice is.

There are three factors that invariably take one away from the path of justice. One is lust, the other is affiliation or relationships and the third is enmity. The Quran expressly exhorts believers not to be influenced by these factors. It says: “We said O David we have made you vicegerent in the earth, therefore judge aright among the people and do not follow lust for it will take you away from the Way of Allah” (38:26).

The Quran enjoins the believers to do justice even if it may be harmful to themselves, or to their parents or to their relatives and irrespective of the fact that the party concerned is rich or poor (4:135). It means that they have to do justice uninfluenced by self-interest or any other affiliation or motive. The Quran further exhorts the believers to be so steadfast in doing justice that their enmity with some people does not turn them away from the path of justice (5:8). In other words, they have to be just even to enemies.

The Quran not only highlights the importance of justice but also tells us how to do justice when it says “we sent our messengers with clear signs and sent down with them the Book and the balance so that the people stand by justice” (57:25). The verse, in fact, tells us that Allah sent His Messengers and with them the Books to enlighten the people, among other things, on the importance of balance so that they learn how to do justice.

The word “balance” implies the maintenance of equilibrium. In the sphere of human activities when the norms of balance are applied in the exercise of discretion, whether in relation to one’s self or in relation to others, or in the exercise of authority or in the delivery of judgment or decision in regard to others in general and their rights and obligations in particular, it is called justice.

Dispensation of justice assumes particular significance when it is in regard to the determination of the rights or obligations, or the guilt or innocence of others. The modern jurisprudence has identified three principles commonly known as the principles of natural justice the observance of which could be sine qua non to the doing of justice. One is that no one shall be condemned unheard. The other is that justice shall not only be done but shall manifestly seem to be done. The third is that no one shall be a judge in his own cause. All these principles are in the observance of the norms of balance as enjoined by the Quran.

The first and foremost requirement of observing the norms of balance could be that every allegation must be met by an appropriate explanation. The person alleged to have done something wrong, or to have failed to discharge an obligation, must have an opportunity to explain his position in respect of the allegation. Without such opportunity it will not be possible to observe the norms of balance. The decision of David in the dispute between the two brothers over the ownership of an ewe (38:22,23) could be the best example.

Although the decision of David was manifestly right but in spite of that he fell down prostrate and sought Allah’s forgiveness after giving the decision, the only plausible explanation of which could be that it occurred to him that he gave his decision without hearing the other party. The principle that could be deduced from this story would be that no one shall be condemned unheard even if he is manifestly wrong.

The other requirement of observing the norms of balance could be that the person giving decision in the dispute between the parties gives equal opportunities to the parties to present, plead and defend their claims and positions, as the case may be, weighs the evidence adduced and the arguments and counter arguments put forward on even scales, gives due consideration to the contentions raised and pleas by the parties and delivers judgment on merit, uninfluenced by any extraneous consideration. This, in other words, implies that justice shall not only be done but shall manifestly seem to be done.

The third requirement of observing the norms of balance could be that the person giving the decision in a dispute involving the rights and obligations of others is unbiased and has no personal interest in the case. Balance is disturbed when the person giving the decision is biased or becomes a judge in his own cause. This is the third principle of natural justice deducible from the observance of the norms of balance as enjoined by the Quran.

An excellent example of the observance of the norms of balance cited by the Quran, could be when the standing crop in the farm of a person was destroyed by the sheep of another person. The matter came up for decision before David who ruled that all of the sheep should be given to the owner of the farm. Solomon came to know about the decision who said, if he were to decide the matter he would have given a different decision.

When David heard about it, he called his son Solomon and asked him what decision would he have given in the matter. Solomon said his decision would have been to give the sheep in the charge of the owner of the farm so that he could make use of them and the owner of the sheep would have been asked to sow seed in the farm and raise another crop. When the crop reached the same stage, in which it was when destroyed, the farm had to be given to its owner and the sheep returned to their owner. David agreed and pronounced the same decision.

The earlier decision of David, as may be seen, was not balanced. The compensation awarded was out of proportion to the loss caused. The loss was of the produce of the property, the corpus of the property was not destroyed. The decision of Solomon was balanced. The owner of the farm was compensated in proportion to the damage caused. The owner of the farm suffered the loss of crop and had nothing to live on till the fresh crop was grown. He got the crop in the same condition in which it was when destroyed. For the intervening period he was compensated by the use of the sheep for his livelihood. The loss suffered by the owner of the sheep was not more than what was necessary for making up the loss caused. That’s why the Quran says Solomon was inspired by Allah with the (right) understanding of the matter (21:79).

The doing of justice, whether in matters involving the rights and obligations of parties or the liability of persons, civil or criminal, largely depends on evidence. It is because of this reason that the Quran lays special emphasis on the production of proper and relevant evidence. As it says “cover not truth with falsehood, nor conceal the truth you know it” (2:42). It says again “and never conceal evidence for he who conceals it, has a sinful heart” (2:283) and to be staunch and firm in giving evidence (4:135).

THEY are symbiotically related but they do not have synergy. Their interests collude but they also collide. Over the years, as trade and industry have grown in Pakistan, they have developed their own spheres of interests and now often find themselves in an uneasy coalition of interests that has been affecting the growth of efficient industrialisation in the country.

In Pakistan’s early days, as trading was principal business activity, it was naturally well represented on various chambers of commerce and industry (CCIs) set up across the country. Historically, the CCIs have also been the principal interlocutors with governments on all business-related issues and their recommendations and preferences have found steady and continuous incorporation in the framing of taxation, tariff and other business related policies over the years.

This has created an economic system where the issues vital to the efficient production of goods and services within the country have often taken the back seat. These issues have suffered from an organisational vacuum — neglected and left out in a kind of no-man’s land. Without a godfather organisation to seek policy interventions on behalf of the generic issues of industrialisation, these have also been neglected by relevant government agencies.

As against this, almost every industrialised and successfully industrialising country has organisational support systems in place that carries forward the national agenda for adding value and improving competitiveness of domestic products.

Japan has the Nippon Keidanren, Korea has the Federation of Korean Industry (FKI), Britain has the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) Italy has the Confindustria, India has the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the list goes on. All these generic industry organisations exist side by side with (CCIs) and are part of the loose federation of business organisations of these countries.

The mandate of these umbrella industry organisations is more or less the same: ‘to accelerate growth, create added value, improve competitiveness and help sustain the conditions in which they can compete and prosper.’ Pakistan has continued to remain the only exception to this almost universal pre-requisite for successful industrialisation.

One consequence of this organisational vacuum has been that the costs of production in Pakistan versus the costs of importing the same products in finished form — even where the country has comparative advantages — have been diverging to the disadvantage of the forces of domestic production in the country. A real life example will illustrate this problem better.

While we were persuading foreign investors to invest in setting up manufacturing facilities in Pakistan, two well known multinational companies — one Japanese and the other German — strong in household related items decided in 1995, to set up their manufacturing facilities here — in Gujrat and Hala. After satisfying themselves with our market potential, their financial experts came back with surprising statistics. Comparing our taxation and tariff structures and other duties and levies, they presented official data which confirmed that if they imported these very products from their manufacturing plants in other Asian countries and sold the finished products in our market through a network of distributors, they would stand to make bigger profits than if they were to go through the trouble of importing raw materials and technology and the setting up of manufacturing facilities in Pakistan.

This state of affairs is true not only in respect of these household products but also for a variety of other potentially profitable industries in Pakistan. The so-called ‘anomalies’ that are often talked about do not spring out from nowhere. These have been deeply imbedded in our economic system over the years and are not easily noticed because there is no “godfather” organisation that is responsible for monitoring and ensuring that such anomalies do not get find their way into our trade and fiscal policies.

An effort to rectify the situation by creating such a private sector organisation — the Confederation of Pakistani Industries (CPI) — made in 1995-96 failed to materialise. The few industrialists who supported the idea did not like to take the initiative themselves for fear of a possible backlash and wanted the government to do so. However, when it was taken up, this time the leadership of some chambers felt that the CPI may emerge as a strong competing organisation and dilute the influence of the CCIs with the government, so they did not support it either.

Ten years later, the coalition of interests between trade and industry remains uneasy and, unlike other Asian countries, Pakistan still lacks an organisation mandated to conduct the necessary functions — from R&D to productivity to market analysis to interlocution with governments — that “help create and sustain the conditions in which our forces of production can compete and prosper.”

In any sensible policy framework, trading and industry should not be treated as two distinct and disconnected activities. The two must have interlocking and mutually reinforcing synergy. Normally, the governments encourage import of raw materials and technology and create incentives for investment in efficient production within the country. But we continue to see policies working in the opposite direction — encouraging imports over domestic production, consumption over savings and speculation over investment.

For some time, the government made savings unattractive with poor returns and forced that money out into the market. Coupled with cheap and liberal bank credits it quickly spiked demand for imported consumer goods even where opportunities for domestic production abounded and the country had comparative advantages.

Its principal agency for attracting investment into new Greenfield projects — the Board of Investment (BOI) — has remained a dead duck for some years. With billions of dollars of Pakistani expatriates’ funds heading towards the home country in the post 9/11 environment, and other Arab and Muslim funds looking for new investment destinations, the BOI should have been the busiest agency of the government rather than the moribund entity it has been reduced to.

For it is the responsibility of the BOI to show vision, understand the consequences of major international events, identify new opportunities and be prepared with investment profiles of all kinds of projects in which these incoming billions should have been invested. Instead of adding scores of new production facilities in the economy by channelling these windfall flows of funds, its failure has pushed these billions of dollars in to the speculative world of stocks and real estate, thus creating additional problems for the country.

But since the big bulk of the world trade is in manufactured goods, there is no escape from this bitter reality. If Pakistan stays away from channelling investments into creating new and efficient production facilities, it will also miss out on the bulk of opportunities in world trade. Losing out on efficient industrialisation would, therefore, straightaway translate into Pakistan losing out on increasing its share in world trade.

The history of industrialisation of Europe, North America and East Asia bears witness to the fact that while many of them started with textiles as the entry point for industrialisation, they soon developed other comparative advantages and widened the industrial base of their economies. Consequently, from textiles, they moved on to engineering, plastics, household goods, agro-food, electronics and others — all the way to the whole new world of the knowledge economy.

The lack of synergy between our trade and industrial policies and institutional vacuum bear major responsibility why the next stage of industrialisation has not yet materialised in Pakistan unlike many other countries that started on this path much later than us.

However, there is no evidence to show that the mutually reinforcing synergy between trade and industry has been conceptualised, much less implemented on the ground. Speculative trading rather than investment in efficient production, consumption rather than savings and investment still hold sway over the economic system

But without creating such synergy between trade and industry, Pakistan would remain a country with some industries — even several ones — but would not be able to graduate into a country with an efficient and competitive industrial economy.

The writer is a former federal secretary.

E-mail: smshah@alum.mit.edu