ASTUTE is the word for the latest move by PML-N leader Mian Nawaz Sharif. His demand for a judicial commission to probe the May 2 American raid in Abbottabad, no less than the seemingly undetected presence of Osama bin Laden in urban Pakistan, puts the PPP government and the military in an unenviable situation. Yet this Sharif swoop has hardly come as a surprise. His strong criticism of both the government and the military at the conclusion of a PML-N party meeting on Wednesday was proportional to the severity of the situation. It hardly amounted to a change of heart. Faced with one complex issue after another, Mr Sharif and his party have repeatedly chosen to ally themselves with the judiciary in the country's political equation. Meanwhile, they have stayed or have been kept at a distance from the army and have carefully increased the gap between themselves and the PPP. The proposal to appoint a high-level commission consisting of the chief justice of Pakistan and the chief judges of the four high courts is reconfirmation that the judiciary is the only institution the modern version of the PML-N is willing to trust at this moment. The PML-N chief has given the government three days in which to implement his suggestion. Political demands in these extremely embarrassing times for Pakistanis are likely to find Mr Sharif intensifying his campaign in coming days.

Mr Sharif's potentially popular move to involve the judiciary is not without precedence, yet it will frustrate fighting for the right of the parliament. On the day the media reported his stance on the get-Osama operation, also reported was the suggestion that a committee comprised of parliamentarians be asked to investigate the incident. But it seems that such 'interference' by elected representatives in highly sensitive national affairs can still not be allowed. The prime minister, for his part, has appointed an adjutant general to probe the incident; his treatment of the subject as a purely military matter makes him appear a weak public representative, incapable of pressing the people's right to know through those they elected.

In-house inquiries and judicial probes are good, so long as they are a build-up to a grand debate in parliament. For true representation, the politicians must make an effort to discontinue the old Pakistani tradition where 'others' have not only been allowed to but have actually been asked to resolve issues that ought rightly be discussed, debated and negotiated in parliament. The May 2 debacle was no small matter: to assuage people's misgivings, there is need for an impartial and above all credible inquiry, whose results are shared with the citizenry.