Hail to the Chief

It appears as if the president, his stooges in the PPP are hell-bent on turning the SC into a ceremonial institution.

Against the backdrop of acute uncertainty, it does appear that the entire energies of the army of parliamentarians has been harnessed to protect the president against somebody writing the dreaded letter to the Swiss banks. The thinking man, who still believes that the judiciary performs a useful function, did wonder how long it would be before somebody filed a petition against the passage of the contempt bill passed by parliament in record time. He didn’t have long to wait. The petition came. And a good thing too. What would have quietly slipped into the mainstream of jurisprudence, to live on in the flickering Valhalla of PPP legend, has now one more hurdle to jump over in the obstacle race. And so a beguiling combination of lonely gullibility and cunning ambition will have to wait a little longer before achieving absolute power.

Without throwing in a lot of legal mumbo jumbo at the reader, what the contempt bill in effect means in simple English is that certain functionaries are above the reach of the courts and can do what they jolly well like, without interference from the Supreme Court. So long as they don’t bump anybody off. And so long as they don’t commit treason. But… hang on. When the bill is passed, who would decide whether treason is or is not being committed, or whether the Constitution is being willfully abused? The theatrically fecund vulpine family surrounding the president? The ISI? Mr Kayani? Mubashar Lucman?

It appears as if the president and his stooges in the PPP are hell-bent on turning the Supreme Court into a ceremonial institution, where the chief justice’s duties would be limited to acting as chief guest at university convocations and art exhibitions and attending innumerable conferences abroad. The government is obviously not pushed about issues like the case of the missing persons and the uncountable charnel house of corpses that Their Lordships are vigorously pursuing.

Mind you, there is also the other side of the coin. The PPP loyalists have a point when they maintain that members of the assemblies and Senate are elected by the people, unlike members of the judiciary. And the voters made a conscious choice when they selected their candidates. They tell me that if I don’t like what the current government is doing — I shouldn’t vote for them at the next election. The problem is, under the Constitution, we have to wait five years for that to happen. And by that time, we’ll probably hit a Rs150 to the dollar.

Anyway, those patriotic citizens who still believe in a system of checks and balances should take heart. This chief justice is no pushover. He has given the current prime minister until July 25 to write the loaded letter. The lawyers have been aroused from their slumber, are wearing black armbands and will be soon on the war path. Imran Khan will be leading another political tsunami on Islamabad. And Hafiz Saeed has fired a broadside against President Asif Ali Zardari for not following the Sunnah and said he should take a lesson from the British prime minister who lives in a four-bedroom house in a quiet street guarded by one policeman. It will be an exciting fortnight. The rumour is that the deputy prime minister from the Turncoat Party is already being groomed to take over and the cabinet is preparing a roster of hopefuls who will enjoy their brief moment of glory before they too are summoned to perform the legal ritual in this black comedy which apparently has no end.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 15^th, 2012.