A language everybody understands

Justice must now speak a language that everybody understands: Murder cannot be justified, no matter what the grounds.

Mobs are swarming around the Anti-Terrorism Court where Mumtaz Qadri is being tried, demanding that he be set free. Meanwhile, Aasia Bibi continues to languish in solitary confinement, awaiting her appeal before the Lahore High Court which, going by precedent, can take something like eight years. What fate our courts mete out to these two prisoners will determine the real meaning of the ‘rule of law’ in this country — the slogan that inspired the lawyers’ movement and led to the restoration of the judiciary.

Meanwhile the government has capitulated to the PML-N, by bowing to their agenda for economic reform. Please think about the ironies of this. At a time of grave economic crisis, the government’s economic agenda is in the hands of not one but two outside monitors. On the one hand is the set of economic reforms proposed by the IMF and the donor community, calling for a withdrawal of subsidies and public sector reform. On the other hand, the government has agreed to also be answerable to a committee set up by the PML-N, to implement a completely different set of economic policies.

So which is it going to be? Who will the government appease and to whom will they show spine? Who will the courts hang and who will they set free? These choices will define the meaning of the rule of law, and the meaning of politics and the future of democracy in this country. And given that the stakes are so high in both cases, the likely result is going to be paralysis, brought on by an endless postponement of any decision until crisis is upon us.

You see, the government cannot fulfill both economic reform agendas because the two are mutually exclusive. One wants the reformed general sales tax (RGST), the other insists that no such step be taken. One wants a withdrawal of subsidies, the other wants more of them. And the government has said yes to both. So now what?

And it’s the same in the case of the judiciary. In a recently passed judgment, the Lahore High Court has ruled that witnesses are not required to establish that blasphemy has taken place, quite possibly setting a new standard of evidence under the blasphemy law. If witnesses can be bypassed in ascertaining whether blasphemy has taken place, the trial of Mumtaz Qadri raises an even more dilated standard under the same law: Can the courts be bypassed altogether? Can any individual assume the prerogative to pass a death sentence in cases where blasphemy is concerned?

Just like the government cannot have it both ways in the case of its economic agenda, so the courts cannot have it both ways in the case of the administration of justice. If the courts can insert themselves into any dispute involving an allegation of blasphemy, then they are also duty-bound to rule decisively on a murder arising from an allegation of blasphemy.

Will the ‘restored judiciary’, have the courage to stand up to the mobs, demanding that a confessed killer be allowed to walk free? Is this what the ‘rule of law’ meant all along?

Through the noise and confusion following the assassination, there are two hard facts that cannot be negotiated away. One is that the fiscal deficit must be brought under control. The hemorrhaging of state finances is a colossal threat to stability in the immediate term. It is not an abstract concern for restricted circulation and it cannot be talked away. The government cannot opt out of its fiscal crisis — money speaks a language everybody understands.

The other hard fact is that the killer must be sentenced for his crime and the sentence must be carried out. If the courts opt out of this vital test of their courage by dragging out the trial indefinitely, there will no longer be any rule of law in this country. Justice, too, must now speak a language that everybody understands: Murder cannot be justified, no matter what the grounds.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 13^th,  2011.