Going Too
Far
By Farhana Mohamed,
PhD
South Pasadena, California
On March 9, 2007, the Chief Justice of Pakistan
Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry was unceremoniously
suspended by a reference issued by President General
Pervez Musharraf under Article 209 of the Constitution
of Pakistan. The President was apparently angry
that the Chief Justice and the Supreme Court were
becoming more and more “objective”
in their rulings. Some examples of such rulings
were overturning the decision to privatize Karachi
Steel Mills, shifting responsibility on the police
force to serve public, and raising objections
about the role of powerful state intelligence
agencies in the suspicious disappearance of individuals
(especially under the pretext of the war on terror).
To add fuel to the fire, CJ Chaudhry, who was
appointed in 2005, was apparently not willing
to issue rulings to support the President and
his Pakistan Muslim League (Q)’s demands
to legitimize the President’s appointment
by one more term through the current assemblies.
The reference against CJ Chaudhry was mainly based
upon a letter sent by Advocate Naim Bokhari to
the President. Interestingly, some of the important
law professionals (such as Advocate Mukhtar Awan,
and former CJ Fakhruddin Ibrahimjee) referred
in the letter have since denied any collaboration
with Bokhari which makes the reliability of the
claims even more shady. One cannot resist but
ask if similar presidential references were issued
in the past when numerous letters were sent to
the President against the excesses committed by
the powerful elite of judiciary, army, bureaucracy,
and the parliamentary members.
In the past, President Musharraf routinely issued
quite a few authoritative executive directives
and got away. However, this time he went too far
and got a big jolt. CJ Chaudhry refused to resign,
so he was suspended and put under house arrest.
This series of actions resulted in an unprecedented
wave of protests from Karachi to Khyber from the
legal profession joined by the politicians in
the leading opposition parties and candidly reported
by the journalists.
First, the Musharraf government took the usual
route to crush the protests through brutal police
force when even CJ Chaudhry was mishandled by
the police and a private TV channel station in
Islamabad was attacked. However, when the terror
tactics flopped, there was a beeline from the
President to the Law Minister apologizing and
uttering total “ignorance” of the
police brutalities on the lawyers, politicians,
journalists and especially the well-orchestrated
attack on the TV station.
The reference against the suspended CJ Chaudhry
is being considered by the Judicial Council Panel
presided over by the Acting CJ Rana Bhagwandas.
Considering the integrity of the Council, one
hopes that the decision will be completely objective
and respected by the government, the suspended
CJ, and the public.
However, there is writing on the wall for President
Musharraf to stop going too far and too long in
his eagerness to prolong his authoritarian rule
by repeatedly undermining the strength of the
people. While the President has gained the “unique”
distinction of being one of the seven dictators
in the world, time has come for him to abstain
extending his military rule further through distortion
of the Constitution and manipulation of the judiciary.
If President Musharraf wants to be benevolently
remembered in the Pakistani history books, he
needs to refrain from getting himself reelected
from the current assemblies, and to allow all
major parties and their leaders to freely participate
in the upcoming elections. As the President has
repeatedly declared that his graph of “popularity”
is much higher than the exiled leaders then perhaps
he would get elected as a civilian President anyway
by the next assembly. Pakistan deserves to follow
the path of progressive enlightenment through
democracy not via dictatorship.
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