WHILE we mourn the ‘judicial murder’ of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, let us recall history. Did our leaders respect our constitution? The ‘institutional boundaries’ in golden words of our constitution are crystal clear but ‘blurred’ in minds of purblind players, ruling bureaucrats, judges and praetorian.

In his book Governance Deficit: A Case Study of Pakistan (p.56), former finance secretary Saeed Ahmed Qureshi points out that our constitutional evolution had an uneasy start with preponderance to personalities over institutions. Qureshi goes on to recount “eight blows to the constitutional system” including dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, the dismissal of elected prime ministers, the induction of Gen Ayub Khan as defence minister on Oct 24, 1954, the imposition of martial or quasi-martial law “for 33 out of Pakistan’s 68 years of history”.

The rot starts in minds when executive, parliament or judiciary out-steps limits to its authority. Let us recall what Justice Muneer said shortly before pronouncing his verdict on the notorious Dosso case: ‘when politics enters the portals of justice, democracy, its cherished inmate, walks out by the backdoor’ (Roedad Khan, Pakistan: A Dream Gone Sour, p. 175).

History teems with luminaries who harboured supra-constitutional hallucinations. Take Gen Zia. He had nothing but contempt for the constitution and democratic norms (ibid., p.87). While addressing a press conference in Tehran, he said: “What is the constitution? It is a booklet with ten or twelve pages. I can tear them up and say that from tomorrow we shall live under a different system (ibid. pp. 87-88)”.

Till the day I-am-the-constitution neurosis vanishes, Pakistan will remain a battlefield of soldiers of fortune in khaki or mufti.

A. J. Malik

Rawalpindi

Published in Dawn, April 7th, 2019