Government thinking beyond single-constituency dynamics

Moments after the Prime Minister took his seat, Sherry Rehman asked for the mic with a perfect sense of timing. It was her good luck that the leader of the opposition and the interior minister were both in attendance.

Through a point of order, she tried to sensitise her colleagues about the “depressing message” delivered by the acquittal of 15 persons who allegedly gang raped Mukhtar Mai, had conveyed.

Deputy Speaker Faisal Karim Kundi reminded her that the National Assembly rules of business forbid “discussing the conduct of a judge.”

An articulate Sherry assuaged the chair by saying that she did not intend to discuss the merits of an already hyped rape case, adding that she also did not want to criticise the Supreme Court decision.

Although she was worried that the acquittal of the alleged rapists would help the global media paint Pakistan as a women-hating country with a mindset of a pre-medieval era, she was more concerned for the shattered emotional state of Mukhtar.

“This morning,” she painfully recalled, “I have talked to her on phone. She wept profusely, sounded to have lost hope and was almost convinced in believing that her enemies would now kill her.” Sherry simply wanted the interior minister to visibly enhance the security for the distraught woman.

Sherry recalled that between 2002 and 2008, Benazir Bhutto used to monitor this case “almost obsessively”.

“It, therefore, is the duty of her party’s government to help and protect Mukhtar by all means. The government should seek review of the decision announced on Thursday, even if Mukhtar has lost the heart for it.”

Jamshed Dasti, the lawmaker elected from Muzzaffargarh, where the incident occurred nine years ago, kept fidgeting throughout Sherry’s speech. Many a time, he tried to draw the chair’s attention. Kundi, however, preferred to act oblivious to his presence. Otherwise, the whole world would have found out how contemptuous and dismissive Dasti can be: he is the same person who keeps insisting that “anti-Islam NGOs had weaved an absolutely untrue story about the (alleged) gang-rape which never happened”.

Rehman Malik tried pacifying Sherry by saying that he would contact the Punjab government to bolster security for Ms Mukhtar, besides providing “whatever legal assistance she requires”.

Sherry, who seemed to have little faith in the interior minister’s wishy-washy statements, rushed to the prime minister’s bench and pressed him to direct the attorney-general to submit a review petition before the Supreme Court.

Dasti, who could no longer contain his anxiety, rushed to the prime minister’s bench as well. He tried to ‘warn’ Gilani that if the government owns up “Mukhtaran Mai (a derogatory title for her), it will ruin the PPP’s chance to win even one seat in Muzzaffargarh in next elections”. His arguments, however, did not sway Gilani. Instead, he told Dasti that as a “government and a broad-based national party, the PPP has to think beyond the dynamics…of (just) one specific constituency”.

Leaving for home, Sherry told the electronic media that the prime minister had promised providing legal assistance to Mukhtar. Knowing too well the working of this government as a former information minister, she must still not feel relaxed. She must continue calling the prime minister’s office to ensure that attorney-general had formally been asked to file a review petition.

The government may still not own Mukhtar’s cause, but the final closure of her case has surely agitated the mass of conscious women in this country. It has also disappointed the civil society, most of whom were among pro-independent-judiciary activists, who had waged many months of relentless battles to see those judges dismissed by the Musharraf regime’s “second martial law” in November 2007 restored.

Ironically, Jamshed Dasti, who appeared to be in deep trouble when he appeared before the apex court on charges of allegedly holding a fake degree, is the most vocal defender of the decision announced by the Supreme Court on Thursday!

This is not an isolated case: recently, the Supreme Court had also turned down recommendations of the duly formed body of parliamentarians regarding a few appointments in superior courts.

Cutting across the party divide, members of the said commission kept deliberating over how to react in a conference room on Friday morning.

Although, journalists have not been appropriately briefed on this matter, I can tell you that a consensus is fast building amongst parliamentarians that it is time that the Supreme Court should start “adjusting to the reality of a sovereign parliament.”

Actively promoted is the idea of discussing the Supreme Court decision regarding the rejection of the parliamentarians’ recommendations through an open debate in both houses of parliament.

Published in The Express Tribune.