After the controversial pronouncement of the Lahore High Court on the PTI and Tahirul Qadri rallies, the Supreme Court has stepped in and demonstrated how to better navigate the intersection of law and politics.

Yesterday, in response to a petition filed in the Supreme Court suggesting that the fundamental rights of the public may be in jeopardy from anti-democratic forces, the Supreme Court laid down a clear marker: nothing unconstitutional will be permitted under the present superior judiciary’s watch.

With street agitation and power politics in the ascendant once again, the Supreme Court has rightly reminded state institutions and functionaries that there are rules that must be abided by and those rules are enshrined in the Constitution.

Unhappily, much of the national conversation on the present events has cast the situation as an almost private battle between the PML-N and PTI/PAT, with the army possibly having a role from the side lines.

Nothing could be further from the truth. It may be the PML-N’s government at stake, but democracy does not belong to any one party or government. It is in fact the rights of every single Pakistani and the constitutional, democratic system under which those rights are guaranteed that are also at stake.

Sadly, in the fixation on the zero-sum game that sections of the political and, possibly, military leadership are once again engaging in, it appears to have been forgotten that democracy and the system of government do not belong to the institutions of the state, they belong to the people. What the Supreme Court has done is remind the country that the state and its organising principles are rooted in rights, not power politics.

It is also good that the government appears to have recognised that fact too, however belatedly. Allowing both the PTI and PAT rallies to proceed to Islamabad and declaring that the federal capital was open to the protesters so long as some basic security requirements unique to the capital were adhered to is a sign of a government willing to accept the protest. However ill-advised and unwise a protest may be, it is a fundamental right and must not be denied.

True, Tahirul Qadri’s demands are undemocratic and Imran Khan’s demands are destabilising for a still-tenuous democracy, but the greater threat to stability has come from the government’s earlier refusal to negotiate with its political opponents and the use of harsh tactics to disrupt or scuttle protests. Tahirul Qadri has been to Islamabad before.

Imran Khan caused a political earthquake with his massive rally in Lahore in October 2011. Through it all, democracy stayed on track. It did so because the political and military leadership at the time exercised restraint that proved far-sighted in democratic terms. Meanwhile, as the PML-N government attempts to handle the crisis, all state institutions must heed the Supreme Court’s warning and refrain from any extra-constitutional step.

Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2014