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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