| September 23, 2007 | Sunday | Ramazan 10, 1428 |
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The week in words
MUNDANE and interesting (even intriguing) comments have flown around the country this past week. For starters, let us recall certain remarks made by members of the Supreme Court bench hearing the six petitions filed by our political heavy- and light-weights against the holding of two offices by President General Pervez Musharraf.
Day One, Monday, Sept 17, produced no major surprises other than the decision by the court that they would stick with the nine-member bench as constituted by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, excluding himself and others. Justice Rana Bhagwandas announced that the plea for hearing by a full court would not be entertained. “Though there was some dissent on the subject during deliberations,” he stated, “convention is that such deliberations cannot be brought on record.”
Justice Muhammad Nawaz Abbasi observed that the formation of a bench is the administrative job of the Chief Justice, and not of this particular court. There was much to-ing and
fro-ing about the sudden move by the Election Commission rendering Article 63 of the Constitution ineffective in the case of the election of a president of the republic, with Justice Falak Sher questioning as to how a subordinate body could simply exclude an article of the Constitution.
Justice Javed Iqbal expressed the hope that the court would conclude the case within the week, by Friday, Day Five. This was not to be and it would now seem that a decision will be given possibly by this coming Tuesday, a mere two days before the filing of the presidential nomination papers.
Day Two brought the not-so-surprising presidential statement (since it had already been mooted in the press via the verbose lesser politicians of the ruling party) submitted by the general’s senior counsel, Jadoogar Sharifuddin Pirzada: “If elected for the second term as the president, General Pervez Musharraf shall relinquish charge of the office of the Chief of Army Staff soon after the election but before taking oath of office…”
The court took it stoically, Justice Bhagwandas remarking that the statement had already been aired.
Day Three was occupied again by the petitioners’ counsel arguing on about the holding of the contentious dual offices, with Justice Javed Iqbal observing that the petitioners have themselves “done something extra-constitutional in the light of the agreement which was signed by the MMA and the government”.
The MMA supported the Seventeenth Amendment — “You accept everything in the agreement and afterwards you plead it was wrong.” Justice Falak Sher added that the incorporation in the Constitution of the name of General Ziaul Haq and the exemption given to General Musharraf was with the “blessings of parliament”.
Most interesting was Day Four, Thursday, with the bench in full flow. With counsel for the petitioners arguing on and on, Justice Javed Iqbal reminded them all of certain facts: That they were “entangled in legal niceties while political parties are holding dialogues for power sharing”, that the “people” about whom they wax eloquent are now desperately seeking ‘atta’, that they should not move the burden of their own shortcomings on to the courts because whenever the army has taken over the country, the politicians have welcomed them in with open arms and the
“people” have distributed “sweets”, that if they plead that this parliament is a “lame duck” the court is unable to transform it into a lion, that parliament, being the sole forum for legislation, had accepted the president general’s dual role via the Seventeenth Amendment.
Justice Iqbal also asked the petitioners why they had not approached the court on the 2002 referendum, why they had not challenged the Seventeenth Amendment and why they were doing so now “because the existing situation does not suit you”. Politicians in opposition have invariably rushed to GHQ to plead for army intervention, so now why rush to the court?
On the plea that the court should disqualify Musharraf from standing for election, Justice Mohammad Nawaz Abbasi asked how the bench could be expected to assume the powers of the Election Commission and suggested that the matter be raised at the proper forum and at the time of scrutiny of the nomination papers. The court could not pre-empt. Nor, added Justice Bhagwandas when the question as to whether Article 63 would apply after Musharraf had shed his uniform, could the court deal with hypothetical questions.
Day Five, Friday, brought forth some bitter exchanges between counsel and court and the matter was adjourned to Monday. (That day, a bench headed by the Chief Justice briefly heard the case of the ‘missing’ or ‘disappeared’ persons — he has his priorities right. The government admitted to having ‘traced’ 145 of the 416 ‘missing’.
The CJ adjourned the case to October 4, with orders to the government that on that day they produce in court a full report, he being convinced they were being held in government custody. (He could be an optimist — many of them may be dead).
Back to Thursday which brought some fiery statements from our champions of democracy. Qazi Hussain Ahmed, one of the petitioners, declared to the press that the opposition parties have reservations regarding the attitude of the judges who, he feels, have been compromised and are under government pressure.
He suggested that as the opposition had ‘cooperated’ with Chief Justice Chaudhry in his hour of need, he should now ‘cooperate’ with the ‘nation’, a euphemism for the opposition parties.
Munir Malik of the Supreme Court Bar Association also spoke up. The legal fraternity plans to besiege the office of the Election Commission on Sept 29, when the nomination papers filed by the general are to be scrutinised, and protest demos will be held that day in various areas. If the verdict of the Supreme Court goes against their ‘expectations’ the fraternity will continue its ‘struggle’ — how was not specified.
On that same day, Commonwealth Secretary Don McKinnon expressed his satisfaction with Musharraf and his uniform — “I acknowledge the commitment he made to me on his uniform on Wednesday…(the) issue will be resolved by the end of the presidential term,” and when the Commonwealth heads of government meet at Kampala in November Musharraf will be a civilian head of state.
All that has been uttered by the usual spokesmen of the ruling party can be safely discounted and ignored. The foreign media had a busy week with Pakistan following the Musharraf COAS resignation pledge.
The Wall Street Journal saw it as “a thinly veiled threat to use the full force of the military to ensure his re-election as president”. And, “the only inference one can draw is that he plans to remain head of the armed forces and invoke emergency rule of martial law”.
The Washington Post, much in the same vein, had it that the pledge was “less a concession than a threat to both Pakistan’s centrist political parties and the court”.
And The Guardian was perhaps a bit unkind, though not completely off the mark, when it remarked, “Pakistan’s institutions, including the Supreme Court, are still dangerously dependent on their political masters.”
e-mail: arfc@cyber.net
