KARACHI: A five-judge Supreme Court bench is, once again, in Karachi to monitor how far the provincial government had acted upon its recommendations thrown up in some previous hearings. The Court’s intervention, prompted by chronic violence in Karachi, has evolved into a scrutiny of almost every aspect of the government’s activity.
In the renewed hearings, the first concern of the judges should be to assess whether the law and order and public affairs in general have shown any improvement since the Court’s intervention. If they come to the conclusion that the situation has been worsening, as indeed it is, they should feel persuaded to wash their hands off and devote all their time to the dispensation of justice. Thousands of appeals and urgent petitions against denial of fundamental rights, it is common knowledge, are awaiting adjudication for years together.
This writer, on the basis of his experience in public service that included serving in the post of district magistrate, home secretary and chief secretary, can confidently assert that law and order and public welfare are best handled by career officials selected on merit through a competitive system and protected against arbitrary action. Ideally, the ministers and legislators should be playing the very role that the judges have undertaken.
The judges stepped in when the elected representatives were seen only politicking or indulging in corruption. The judicial intervention can be neither permanent nor productive even in the short run. The Supreme Court would be making a lasting contribution to public welfare if it were to lay down a system which restrains the politicians from interfering in administration, or the civil servants from invoking their interference, to advance their personal or political ends.
Kunwar Idris
Published in The Express Tribune, December 8th, 2012.
