LAHORE: This is with reference to Ejaz Haider’s article of January 4 “Banishing memogeist” where the writer has disagreed with Asma Jahangir’s comments on the Supreme Court’s decision on the memogate petition filed by PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif. Mr Haider has said that the government needn’t worry about the judicial commission set up as a result of the Supreme Court’s order. The point in this is not that it shouldn’t be worried but that why would the honourable court set up a commission when a parliamentary committee was already seized of the matter. What will happen if the findings of the parliamentary committee are different than those of the judicial commission? What is going to happen then and whose findings will be implemented? And who or which institution will ensure such implementation?
The point that Ms Jahangir was making, and it is not entirely an unfair one, was that: is it the responsibility of the judiciary to investigate and collect evidence to prepare a case? Also, who will disagree with her assertion that in Pakistan, security issues tend to trump those relating to human rights and this is in large part because of the undue influence enjoyed in practically all spheres by the country’s military.
Since Mr Sharif was the petitioner, at the very least he should have been asked whether he did not have confidence in the parliamentary committee, given that his own party’s MNAs were part of it. Where were the courts when Asif Zardari remained in jail for 11 years, and ended up not being convicted in a single case?
ST Hussain
Published in The Express Tribune, January 6th, 2012.
