The life and times of Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada

In a long-spanning career as one of the country’s premier legal brains, Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada has stood like a Colossus among his contemporaries. He was arguably the most respected and feared lawyer of his time, dominating courtroom proceedings in a manner hitherto unseen before or after.

His demise at the age of 94 late last week following a long bout of illness has brought into sharp focus his high-profile career as a key adviser of military rulers Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Ziaul Haq and Pervez Musharraf.

Purely from the perspective of the legal practice, Pirzada will be remembered as a legal wizard with the ability to forge innovative solutions to complex legal and constitutional conundrums.

But from the perspective of the proponents of democracy and civilian rule, Pirzada will be remembered as the man who played a pivotal role in distorting the true face of the 1973 Constitution by introducing anti-democratic amendments, such as the notorious Article 58-2b, Legal Framework Orders and Provisional Constitutional Orders, for the purpose of preserving and prolonging the power of his military patrons.

Pirzada claimed to have served as secretary to the ultimate constitutionalist, Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Interestingly, he had actually been part of the legal team of Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan in the latter’s valiant but unsuccessful legal crusade against the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly by Governor General Ghulam Mohammed in 1954. The same man went on to craft Article 58-2b of the Constitution, which gave the president the undemocratic power to dissolve the National Assembly.

I once had a discussion with a fellow lawyer on these facets of Pirzada’s personality. My colleague considered Pirzada in hallowed terms as the most successful exemplar of the art of advocacy, and he saw no issue with Pirzada’s use of the law to serve the interests of military rulers, justifying it on the basis that this was simply a matter of a lawyer fully doing justice to his client’s case.

While there is an obvious element of truth in the above argument, it is not the whole truth. Yes, it is expected for a lawyer to faithfully pursue the client’s case. But that does not justify honing one’s practice in the service of military dictators and making oneself the ultimate authority in crafting amendments which twist the letter and spirit of the Constitution solely to serve the needs of the authoritarian ruler of the day.

Constitutional cases are not conventional legal cases which affect only the individual client; rather these cases have the potential to determine the political/constitutional future and destiny of the nation. Therefore, assuming a legal brief in such a case cannot simply be treated on a par with a lawyer’s engagement in a routine legal matter. On the contrary, it is a matter of immense public importance which should be decided in keeping with the dictates of one’s conscience and not simply in accordance with the selfish interests of one’s client, particularly when these clash with the structure and ethos of the Constitution.

In the true sense of the term, a constitutional lawyer is a master of constitutional law whose expertise is relied upon to interpret and understand the intricacies of the Constitution and to develop the body of constitutional jurisprudence. A constitutional lawyer believes in the inherent sanctity and purity of the Constitution, while recognising that it is an organic document which must keep pace with the evolution of national society. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, the constitution must go “hand in hand with the progress of the human mind”.

Across the border, persons like the late Nani Palkhivalla and Fali S Nariman are considered constitutional jurists of the highest calibre. These legal luminaries considered the Constitution of India as a sacred document and as the repository of the fundamental rights of Indian citizens. Particularly in the case of Palkhivalla, his enormous contribution to the development of Indian constitutional law is second to none.

In Pakistan, persons like Abdul Hafeez Pirzada, Fakhruddin G Ebrahim, Khalid Ishaq, Ali Ahmed Fazeel, Abid Hasan Minto and Hamid Khan can be considered as constitutional lawyers in the traditional mould.

But it was to none of the above jurists that military dictators and interventionist presidents, such as Ghulam Ishaq Khan, would turn to when they needed to find an innovative solution which could tailor the Constitution to their specific needs. The reason was that these luminaries did not hold themselves out as lawyers willing to serve the interests of military rulers by devising legal artifices which would shake the very foundations of the Constitution. Pirzada obviously had no such qualms, therefore he was the counsel of choice in such matters for all military rulers, from Ayub to Musharraf.

There is another aspect of his career which also merits attention. Nearly 50 years ago, Pirzada served as the foreign minister from 1966 to 1968, during the era of Ayub Khan’s government. Actually, he succeeded Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in this role, when the latter parted ways with Ayub Khan after their disagreement over the Tashkent Summit.

Then again in 1993 Pirzada again held the office of foreign minister, in the short-lived caretaker cabinet of Mir Balkh Sher Mazari. He is thus the only person in Pakistan’s history to have held the office on two separate occasions divided by 25 years.

The passing of Pirzada therefore marks the demise of the oldest living former Foreign Minister of Pakistan and the only living Foreign Minister from the era before the 1990s. All persons who held the position of Foreign Minister of Pakistan from 1947-1990 had already met their Maker, and Pirzada’s demise brings down the final curtain on this era.

It is also interesting to note that Pirzada was one of the last two surviving members of the cabinets of Ayub Khan from 1958 to 1969. The only other living member of Ayub Khan’s cabinets is senior lawyer S M Zafar, who served as Ayub’s law minister between 1965 and 1969.

Pirzada has completed his innings and returned to the pavilion. It is now for history to judge whether he will be regarded as a legal luminary who brought lustre to the field of constitutional law or whether his name will be synonymous with the mutilation of the Constitution at the hands of military dictators.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 6^th, 2017.

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