Commissions and conclusions

The government has finally witnessed Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry nominate Justice Javed Iqbal to head the judicial commission to probe the Abbottabad raid by the US in which Osama bin Laden was killed, while Justice Saqib Nisar will head the commission to probe journalist Saleem Shahzad’s killing.

Lawyers had taken the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists petition to the honourable Court, asking it to safeguard human rights against a government bent upon brushing the death of journalist Saleem Shahzad under the carpet. Sadly, while the government delayed forming the commission on Saleem Shahzad, another journalist was thrashed in Islamabad, possibly by the same culprits. Meanwhile, out in the streets, the opposition was excoriating the government on turning its face away from the Abbottabad raid.

The chief justice has added two very relevant conditions to the matter of commissions: That the members nominated to them be commensurate in stature with the status of the Supreme Court judges heading them; and that the reports presented by them to the government be made public or the chief justice will make them public himself. The commission probing the death of Saleem Shahzad will look into the circumstances in which Pakistani journalists in the past have been brutally murdered or beaten up.

The terms of reference for the Abbottabad commission will have to supersede the resolution of the joint parliamentary session because much that has contributed to influence the public mind is tendentious and seeks to prejudge the issue. The most important term would have to relate to the circumstances that led to the location of Osama bin Laden in a city compared to America’s West Point. The US has already declared that the top leadership of the Pakistan Army did not know that Bin Laden was living in Abbottabad, but the commission will have to ignore that.

The commission will also have to ignore the arrest of persons who are said to have secretly facilitated the American attack. More importantly, it will have to find out — and make public — who was in dereliction of duty in the matter, so that corrections can be made. One must recall that the parliamentary resolution was more focused on violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and had recommended measures to the Pakistan Army aimed at preventing this in the future. One wishes that the parliament had waited for the findings of the commission to arrive at a balanced view of what had actually transpired and what could be done about it.

The public view has already matured in the interim. What looked like an anti-army emotion is now tempered with the realisation that the army cannot be thoughtlessly made the butt of criticism. A weakening of the military leadership is in nobody’s favour and might land Pakistan in more trouble. The nation must realise that the army alone is not to blame for the general decline of security in Pakistan. However, a sympathetic view of our army is only possible if we have an informed and balanced view of what is actually going on. If the public believes the current conspiracy theory, that the US, India and Israel are together bent upon destroying Pakistan, then no army in the world can save us.

Commissions have not had a good innings in Pakistan. Some recent commissions have suffered from premeditation on the basis of media reports. Some commissions have been shelved with a big ‘secret’ written on the file, like the famous Justice Hamoodur Rehman Commission report on East Pakistan and the Justice Shafiur Rehman Commission report on the death of General Ziaul Haq. If self-correction is the sincere aim, the advice of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry must be heeded. Past commissions reports were often shielded from public view in order to help the army save face. This time they should be made public for the good of the army.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 22^nd, 2011.