KARACHI: “We haven’t even cast our votes yet and we are hearing people say that the elections won’t be fair and free, that the results will be manipulated,” said human rights activist Anis Haroon as she began a debate on ‘Constitutional framework for parliamentary elections ‘18’, two days ahead of general elections, at The Second Floor (T2F) on Monday.

She said that with several missed elections and martial laws, Pakistan had only had weak civilian governments. “With continuous civil-military conflicts in the democratic set-up, the role of the judiciary is also questionable now,” she said.

Sara Malkani of the Women Lawyers’ Association said that they needed to look back to understand how the country reached such circumstances. “The judiciary does not set civil-military relations, secularism, etc. There is politics involved there. But the judiciary has backtracked too after giving legal angles to excursions from outside. The Supreme Court has also given martial law its stamp of approval,” she said.

“But then the judiciary evolved. The lawyers’ movement actually played a role in driving out a dictator and ushered in democracy. But then the Supreme Court facilitated the removal of a prime minister,” she pointed out. “If we want to preserve our judicial system, we need to think about what we should do.”

Haider Imam Rizvi of the Karachi Bar Association (KBA) said there was also the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to look over the election process. “But the judiciary and ECP’s roles don’t seem to be defined and clear as they were in the election of 2013. There is no subordinate judiciary. With so much interference from the courts in the elections, we will have a weak parliament,” he said.

“If they want to decide who is corrupt and who is not then they should not ask us to vote,” he said.

Salahuddin Ahmed also of the KBA thought it strange for Pakistan’s independent judiciary to be checking on parties and candidates.

Asad Butt of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said the establishment was taking dangerous measures to get the results it wanted in the elections. “It is a dangerous situation. The way everyone, including the media, is being ordered around and threatened is not right,” he said.

“It used to happen earlier, too, but then there was just the print media and they would leave blank columns where news was censored and removed. Now they are not even allowed to do that while being made to listen to orders and comply,” he said.

“But what kind of democracy are we looking at when you don’t even have the right to information?”

Published in Dawn, July 24th, 2018