AS noted by Roedad Khan in his book Pakistan: A Dream Gone Sour (p.175), Justice Muhammad Munir, shortly before pronouncing his infamous verdict on the notorious Dosso case, said: “… when politics enters the portals of justice, democracy, its cherished inmate, walks out by the backdoor”.

French jurist Jean Bodin’s dictum is also before us, that is; ‘highest power over citizens and subjects is unrestrained by law’. Then there is a Latin quip; who will guard the guardians? The phrase epitomises Socrates’ search for guardians who can hold power to account. Power corrupts, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely, right?

History teems with luminaries who harboured supra-constitutional hallucinations. While addressing a press conference in Tehran, Gen Ziaul Haq said, “What is the Constitution? It is a booklet with 10 or 12 pages. I can tear them up and say that from tomorrow we shall live under a different system”.

Asghar Khan in We have Learnt Nothing from History: Pakistan, Politics and Military Power, has also described thoughts of a former prime minister about ‘democracy’ in Pakistan. “Zulfikar Ali Bhutto … told me that he was sure that if I joined hands with him … we can then rule together. The people are stupid and I know how to fool them. I will have the danda (stick) in my hand and no one will be able to remove us for 20 years.”

Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte also harboured extra-constitutional thoughts. Napoleon told Moreau de Lyonne, “The constitution, what is it but a heap of ruins. Has it not been successively the sport of every party? Has not every kind of tyranny been committed in its name since the day of its establishment?”

During his self-crowning in 1804, Napoleon said: “What is the throne, a bit of wood gilded and covered with velvet? I am the state. I alone am here, the representative of the people.”

Theoretically, the people hold ‘power’ to account. But the ‘people’ are an amorphous lot without a legal identity, like an institution, except as ‘voter’ during elections, usually not fair in our context. Noam Chomsky called even American people a “bewildered herd”.

Will the people in power hold themselves accountable? The eternal wait continues.

Amjed Jaaved
Rawalpindi

Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2023