AN anecdote about the judicial system of Pakistan refers to the following conversation between an elephant and a cow in a jungle.
The elephant found a cow looking for a place to hide and asked if everything was alright. The cow replied, “Don’t you know the police are looking for a buffalo they suspect is prowling near parliament? “Yes, I heard that but you are a cow not a buffalo,” said the elephant. “With our judicial system it would take me at least 10 years to prove that,” the cow lamented. Hearing this, the elephant also started to run helter-skelter to find a place to hide.
More than a year ago, the prime minister deferred the promotion of almost 40pc of senior civil servants recommended by the Central Selection Board (CSB) as their intelligence reports were far from satisfactory, giving directions to make recommendations in light of the Supreme Court decision in the Orya Maqbool Abbasi vs Federation of Pakistan case.
The court in that case had observed that “it would be [a] great achievement if it is added in the policy to hold an inquiry of the civil servant while sending his case for promotion and also examine his family assets at the time when he joined the service, including lifestyle, expense on children’s education, expenses on children’s marriage, foreign tours as well as ... ascertain the political affiliation of such a candidate to make the bureaucracy free from political affiliation….”
However, as is almost always the case, the decision of the prime minister was followed by writ petitions in the Islamabad and Lahore high courts. The prime minister’s intervention was declared unconstitutional on the ground that it was the sole prerogative of the CSB to make recommendations for promotion. The Establishment Division appealed against the rulings in the Supreme Court. The latter recently observed:
They say fight till the finish but choose your battles.
“The reports from the intelligence agencies were produced before us after we had directed the attorney general to show the material which was placed before the prime minister when the recommendations of the board came for his consideration. We would not like to make any comment upon the material even tentatively lest it in any way influences the decision of the board during re-examination of the cases of the respondents. …
“The board shall re-examine the cases of the respondents on the basis of the criteria already set for determining the fitness or otherwise of the civil servants for promotion without in any way, being influenced by the observations made in the summary for the return of the recommendations to the board. Since the promotion of the respondents have been pending for the last so many years, let the board make its recommendations within a period of 30 days and the competent authority shall finalise their cases within 15 days of the submissions of the recommendations.”
Isn’t it precisely what the prime minister had suggested more than a year ago?
They say fight till the finish but choose your battles. The court did have the opportunity and legal justification to do precisely that, as the maintainability of the writ petition was questioned on the ground that the matter related to the terms and conditions of civil servants and thus the jurisdiction of the high court was barred under Article 212 of the Constitution.
The high court rejected the argument, citing that the Federal Service Tribunal was not functional at the time. The court could have simply directed to make the service tribunal functional.
I wonder how and why CSB members would change their earlier recommendations. After all, it does not take intelligence reports to know that a person on leave for years, apparently more interested in earning a Canadian citizenship than his service and running his own business is not a fit choice for promotion. This is just one case that I am privy to — there may be other cases that are similar. The problem is that now at least someone would be proved wrong, either the intelligence reports, the CSB or the prime minister. And it would lead to a never-ending cycle of trust, mistrust and chaos.
Similarly the Federal Board of Revenue also finds itself paralysed at the hands of stay orders issued by courts and tax ombudsmen against various tax assessments made by it. The litigation takes years and tax evaders have a field day at the cost of the principle of ‘upholding justice’.
Sadly, the world does not come to a standstill during all this litigation. When the prime minister deferred the promotions he instructed that the positions be kept vacant until a review was completed. The positions continue to be vacant for more than a year waiting for a bureaucrat to grace them. Sadly, as long as we keep chasing our tails, there will be little progress.
The writer is a former civil servant.
Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2015
On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play
Dear visitor, the comments section is undergoing an overhaul and will return soon.