FORMER president Musharraf while delivering a lecture in the Trinity Laurie auditorium in Washington conceded that the sacking of Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was a mistake (Sept 19).

Surely, it is a sign of greatness to accept one's mistakes and seek forgiveness from those who might have been wronged due to such mistakes. Will he do it? One wonders.

Sadly, however, Mr Musharraf is not willing to accept that even sending the reference against the Chief Justice to the Supreme Judicial Council was a mistake.

If the head of a state does not have any mechanism to scrutinise high-profile cases in a robust fashion before final decisions, the mistakes can be very costly.

Even now it would seem that Mr Musharraf regrets his decision in the Chief Justice case because he lost his power and not because he acted emotionally and irrationally in the situation.

This is borne by the way the Chief Justice was treated at the time of pressurising him to resign even before the decision of the Supreme Judicial Council.

Dictatorial rule is always prone to committing policy blunders which mostly lead to the ruler's downfall.

This is why in a democratic institutional setting policy formulating processes are not dependent upon one man's judgment, no matter how powerful or wise he might think he is.

Multiple inputs and diverse perspectives underpinned by rigorous analyses and independent judgments minimise the probability of poor judgments in democratic decision-making.

Mr Musharraf is not guilty of one but numerous mistakes. And, one would not like to belabour the obvious in this short letter since they are now common knowledge.

The most serious ones, however, are worth repeating and these would include the overthrow of a civilian government, the May carnage of Karachi, and, last but not least, his action of November 3 that resulted once again in subverting the constitutional order in the country.

While our current ruling elite can learn from this case but for Mr Musharraf it would be proper to offer an apology to the people of Pakistan.

Will he do this? Given the hubris that he displays, he will not.

DR ZAFAR I. QURESHI

Lahore