PESHAWAR, June 10: People’s Party Parliamentarians spokesman Farhatullah Babar has said a great threat to the federation is marginalisation of the civil society and capture of state institutions by the military.
Speaking at the People’s Lawyers Forum convention at the Nishtar Hall on Saturday, he urged lawyers to play their role in correcting the civil-military imbalance and help stop army generals from taking over civil institutions.
He claimed that former army chief Gen Jehangir Karamat had publicly stated that “the proposed package of constitutional changes (Legal Framework Order) reflects Musharraf’s hope to resolve the lingering issue of civil-military relations in Pakistan on military’s terms”.
Mr Babar said that as part of this agenda, the regime had made parliament a powerless institution, adding that parliament had been denied the right to question some issues on the ground that these were sensitive matters and harmful to state’s security.
He said questions regarding inquiry into the Kargil incident, military personnel’s annual declaration of assets, criminal cases against a provincial governor and the amount of pension paid to the military from the civil budget were killed. He said a question about 12 serving military officers against whom the NAB chairman had said proceedings were going was disallowed on the ground that it would prejudice the investigations. Similarly, he said, resolutions to withdraw exemption given to serving defence personnel from payment of toll tax on highways were not allowed. Even a resolution calling upon the government to enact a law to regulate working of intelligence agencies was disallowed, he added.
He alleged that from the Maulvi Tameezuddin case to the Zafar Ali Shah case, courts had facilitated assaults on the constitution by the military rulers.
He said suspension of the constitution, promulgation of the Provisional Constitutional Order and sacking of Supreme Court judges were assaults on the judiciary.
The convention endorsed resolutions adopted by the Pakistan Bar Council at its Quetta meeting.
The lawyers also adopted a resolution saying the military’s subordination of state institutions, rewriting of the constitution, undermining of parliament, assaults on the independence of judiciary, growing poverty, unemployment and the breakdown of rule of law under the military dictatorship had caused the present crisis in the country.
The convention criticised the NAB for allegedly victimising political opponents of the government by implicating them in false cases.
It demanded an end to political victimisation, return of exiled political leaders and an end to use of accountability as a tool of political manipulation and remaking Pakistan’s political landscape.
He regretted that the government had failed to take notice of corruption in fixing oil prices by oil marketing companies, succumbed to the pressure from sugar mill owners and stopped investigations against them, sold national assets in a non-transparent way and failed to answer questions about recent military purchases.
He said military governments had always increased the economic woes of people.
The meeting called for immediate restoration of parliament’s sovereignty.
It called for scrutiny and approval by parliament of all expenditures out of the public exchequer, including military expenditures. It demanded that all treaties and agreements negotiated with foreign parties should be made public and placed before parliament for scrutiny.
The convention called for setting up a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate cases of torture, imprisonment, state-sponsored persecution, targeted legislation, and politically motivated accountability.
