Independence of Judiciary
By Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)
Westridge, Rawalpindi


A few years back our cook – an ex army man and a Pathan - lived with his wife and grownup beautiful daughters in a rented house in the Pindi Cantt. area. Not so young a khateeb of a nearby mosque took a fancy for the daughter and repeatedly asked for her hand, which was denied on grounds of ethnicity – Pathan versus non-Pathan and age difference, etc. The cleric warned the family of dire consequences, and when that failed, he one evening after prayers in the mosque declared the wife blasphemous for desecrating the Holy Qur’an by throwing it in the drain. Within no time a mob converged on the house and the police with great difficulty succeeded in controlling the law and order situation and took her into custody and later sent her to Adiala Jail.
The legal proceedings dragged on and on for years, the poor cook paying the lawyer’s fees at each hearing, paying the court functionaries for various legal and imaginary fees and a hefty amount of Rs. 50, 000 to the judge (through his lawyer) for getting bail of his wife and that too when not a single prosecution witness, including the mullah, had come forward before the court during all this time. In the process the ex-serviceman had lost all his life’s savings, his accumulated pension of rupees one and half lac, his wife’s gold and silver ornaments; he sold the dowry articles of his daughters and was over and above under a debt of Rs. 40,000. His entire life savings vanished.
Seeing the lawyers on the TV chanting “Adliya ki Azadi”, he asked me with a distinct sarcastic look in his eyes, “What more azadi do they want? They can sentence any one they want. They can leave anyone they wish. They take all the money of the poor. More than 50% of their decisions are reversed by the higher courts. Don’t the higher judges know how the lower judges take the bribe? Don’t the lawyers fleece their poor clients whether they get the justice or not? They can do whatever they want. What more Azadi do they want?
I wish I could answer him. Can you?


*****

A Pakistani American’s Concern

Dr. Muhammad Nawaz did his PhD (International Law) from Ann Arbour Michigan, USA, in the mid-1950s and after serving as Legal Counsellor in various UN organisations, is doing private consultancy with the World Bank in Washington DC. Decades of Foreign Service and continuous stay abroad have not lessened in any way his concern, patriotism, and love for Pakistan, as is evident from his letter below. Nawaz has posed a question in the last part of his letter, which is thrown open to all to reply:

Dear Riaz,

I like your objectivity and insight in commenting on the events as they, unfortunately, are shaping up currently in Pakistan. To me, it seems there is a lot more to come and the worst yet once the present man is out. Despite all the hatred, contempt and resentment being shown against him the day is not very far when the same people who are shouting the loudest would say that he had saved the country from total collapse. I need not go into any further personal guesses on this subject at this stage.
The lawyers are a very special class, in addition to their political leanings and prejudices, one major problem with demonstrating black jackets is their intellectual bankruptcy in terms of understanding the issues in a broader national and international context. I have always believed that the lawyers are very narrowly focused on rules without connecting them to the social environment. Unfortunately, any situation into which they get involved always becomes messy and complex. They lack the intellectual agility to apply law to resolve the social issues. They have memorized from their books the concepts like the independence of judiciary but have never tried to understand that how these concepts are to work properly in a social framework. There is a total disconnect between the legal concepts that they tend to scream and social environment in which these concepts are practiced. The tragic and sad story of your chef explains it all.
I hope I am totally wrong if I were to say that with every passing day my pessimism about the future of the country is drifting down hill. If you see any light at the end of this dark tunnel then please do enlighten me on that. I really mean it and I shall be very grateful for your giving me some thoughts on it. Isn't there any sizeable group in the educated population of the country that can understand the whole situation in its geopolitical context and growing religious intolerance within the society.

Regards,
Nawaz

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Editor: Akhtar M. Faruqui
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