ILF seminar and the idea of justice

In countries of expedient politicians, democracy is seen only in terms of the demand for public balloting. Which is a narrow definition of a term that cannot be explained and truly implemented without the participation of the voters in the political process through dialogue and debate supported by reasoning. Any other situation is a condition where citizens are merely used for the formation of government through balloting.

Barrister Syed Ali Zafar also highlighted this point in his speech at the All Pakistan Insaf Lawyers Forum (ILF) held in Islamabad on October 9, 2020. He said that the previous governments had never taken governance, the bedrock of democracy, seriously. Referring to the famous definition that democracy is of the people, by the people, and for the people, he said that the political elite in the country had neglected abiding by the ‘for the people’ part of the definition, and had only been interested in ‘by the people’ and ‘of the people’ parts because it suited them to come to power. The political elites, he pointed out, have been forgetful of the promises of welfare they make to the voters to assume power. This dictatorial approach, said Barrister Zafar, who is also the ILF chairman, creates a political culture of incumbent’s connivance. He then requested the Prime Minister of Pakistan, who was the chief guest on the occasion, to enable the provision of speedy and inexpensive justice. To strengthen his argument about the malice of injustice he quoted the most pertinent description of Hazrat Ali (RA) on the abuse of power. It goes: “A system run by non-believers can survive but not that of oppression and exploitation.” He further argued that democracy and the welfare of people are two sides of the same coin. The barrister stressed upon reforming the fate of a common man. To reinforce the importance of having this common man at the centre of public policy, he referred to the Quaid-e-Azam’s quote, which also summarises the essence of his struggle for the emancipation of Muslims of India from the Hindu majority rule. Jinnah said: “My struggle is not for the elites. They are already well possessed. My struggle is for the common Muslims in India.”

The crux of Barrister Zafar’s speech was: One, there should be rule of law in Pakistan; two, the country’s political and administrative affairs should be managed sensibly and responsibly; three, the culture of elitism should be eliminated from society; four, public policies should be people-centric; and finally, justice should be made omnipresent through reformation and digitisation of judicial processes.

Pre-empting any attempt for the announcement of yet another committee for judicial reforms, the barrister, requested for the formation of a commission to wade through the existing voluminous reformatory reports to recommend an implementation framework to remove barriers in the dispensation of speedy justice.

What the ILF chairman did not say explicitly was later laid bare by Prime Minister Imran Khan in his speech. His focus was on accountability. He argued, and rightly so, that the culture of elitism develops where the powerful are given a free hand to abuse their power, while the system of accountability fails to respond timely and professionally. The absence of the system of check and balance for those in power, said the PM, brings destitution to the common man. Talking about the accountability framework, he said, it should be relentless, cutting across all sections of society. Without mincing words, the PM deplored the political parties for building fences to escape accountability.

People have raised questions on the PM’s speech and have also gone so far as to say that the he has inadvertently removed ambiguity from the long-held belief that Pakistan’s premier spy agency, the ISI, has been involved in collecting a record of politicians’ corruption. The critics are also aghast at Imran Khan’s description of democracy about which he said: “I am democracy.” The opponents are also fuming at Imran’s condescending remarks on the lifestyle of PML-N’s leaders.

Had Imran Khan not said any of these, it would have been an injustice to his voters with whom he has committed to removing ambiguity from the political discourse and narrative to expose reality. For one, let’s be sure that all the intelligence agencies have a tacit mandate to secure the country from any element — foreign or domestic — that could bring instability to the country. CIA spies the US congressmen and senators. President Richard Nixon and Lyndon B Johnson had requested the CIA to investigate the reasons behind mass movements during their respective eras. In 2014 Senator Dianne Feinstein accused the CIA of spying on the Senate intelligence committee that was working on the report on the torture of prisoners. The investigation into the accusation revealed the involvement of CIA officers who had penetrated the computer network used by the Senate Intelligence Committee tasked with the preparation of a report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation programme.

Can this country be left to its politicians, half of which are facing corruption charges? That all the corruption charges leveled against the leading opposition parties are forged sounds improbable. There must be some reality to it. Isn’t the difficulty of the common man to make his ends meet the result of the misplaced policies of the previous governments — directed towards projects that could be milked in elections?

About Imran Khan’s remark that ‘I am democracy’ it was an allusion to his belief in the power of people and his desire to see their welfare aligned to the national policies. His remark on the lifestyle of the PML-N leaders could have been avoided, but we must not forget that it is the lifestyle that determines elitism and draws a cleavage between the have and have-nots. In this system, aren’t some more equal than others.

The narrative put forward in the ILF seminar was ‘for the people’. It now awaits the collective wisdom of the parliamentarians to bring it to fruition by making the ordinary Pakistani the direct stakeholders of the policy formation.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 15^th, 2020.

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