Not Worth the Paper
By Dr Mohammad Taqi
Florida
The gates apparently have been closed on the memo matter. I say apparently, because while the honorable Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan could have sealed shut the door on the utter frivolity that the so-called Memogate has been all along, it seems to have left its proverbial foot in that door. Indeed, it is reported that the SC has sealed a communication — a memo if you will — from Mansoor Ijaz and the judicial commission probing the matter has been given a two-month fresh lease of life.
A section of the media and especially one senior anchor-cum-analyst has been peddling this (conspiracy) theory that some deal has been reached between the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government and the military brass to bury the hatchet. This same anchor had absolved the Pakistan Army of having had any malice in this sordid saga and had ventured to state that Generals Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and Ahmed Shuja Pasha cannot even think of plotting a coup (woh toh aisa soach bhi nahi saktay). The analyst had also claimed that the army had nothing to do, whatsoever, with the petitions filed by Mian Nawaz Sharif et al, who had jumped the gun on his own.
Well, perhaps there was no nexus between the judiciary, the political petitioners and the military, and it was all one mighty coincidence. The January 30, 2012 hearing was a great opportunity for the SC to clear that fog. It could have and should have quashed the frivolous litigation thrown in its lap — in the name of fundamental rights and public interest, no less — by Nawaz Sharif and his protégés, and chronic compulsive litigants a la Barrister Zafarullah Khan.
The SC by its own pronouncement has been operating in an inquisitorial mode and having been stonewalled by Mansoor Ijaz, it had the option to declare proceeding further as infructuous (a neoterism that has been a staple of the Pakistani legal community for ages). It is indeed disappointing that a court whose stated objective has been the discovery of evidence has opted to suppress a correspondence that could potentially be the clincher for either side.
It is certainly good to see that my lordship Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has lifted the travel ban on Husain Haqqani. While some are bending over backwards to acknowledge this graciousness, it must be most humbly submitted that suspending Husain Haqqani’s fundamental right to liberty — constitutionally guaranteed under Article 9 — was abhorrent and wrong ab initio. The man was not even formally charged with any wrongdoing (and has not been yet at the time of this writing) let alone found guilty, but was still deprived of his rights.
The affidavits of the Pakistani chief spook and the army chief, who the court remained keen to address as the ‘sipah saalaar’, as well as Mansoor Ijaz’s ramblings were nothing more than ‘he said, she said’, which the apex court should not have pegged its credibility on. The honorable court has done itself a favor by restoring to the former ambassador what was rightfully his to begin with. My lordships would further enhance their stature by conclusively extricating themselves from a purely political matter that they have allowed themselves to be seized with.
The memo itself was worthless, and frankly, beyond ridiculous, but it has unmasked many serious fault lines persistently running through Pakistan’s body politic, which need a detailed analysis eventually. Suffice it to say that it has highlighted where the interests of various entities converged and also where they became divergent. It has shone light on the relative strengths and weaknesses of different state structures, including the military, which has been erroneously dubbed as an institution by many. The most important fact is that the choice of Husain Haqqani as a target had everything to do with his staunch support for civilian superiority over the military. And the most important outcome of the Memogate is that the army failed to deliver a knockout blow to the civilians and by taking it to the last round, the latter virtually won on points.
Even the pundits giving the generalissimos a clean bill of health know it well that the whole saga was about getting to President Asif Ali Zardari. The army would have never stopped at just getting Husain Haqqani’s scalp. One simply does not go to that extreme — affidavits and all — only to settle for a draw. In realpolitik, one settles for a draw only when forced to do so. Various constitutional protections against removal enjoyed by President Zardari pushed his opponents to look for ways to circumvent these or trigger impeachment. The Memogate was rigged to trip the Article 6 fuse.
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s initial knee-jerk response to appease the junta by apparently sacrificing Haqqani was simplistic and self-serving. But as I have noted before, President Zardari and Husain Haqqani had made the right decision to sink or swim together. If one would have been pried away from the other, the PPP government might have unraveled. The prime minister had little choice but to go along with his party and in the process show periodic sparks of resolve.
The Zardari-Haqqani calculation that the army wanted the current dispensation to go, but a textbook coup d’état was not possible in the present day, was spot-on. With an active traditional and contemporary media and Pakistan’s economic condition, military takeover was never a viable option. The army’s frustration showed in its unprecedented press releases. But with everyone having harped on about democracy for so long, it was never easy for anyone — not General Kayani, not the judiciary — to wrap up the present system. The army had bitten off more than it could chew and, by playing along with it, the courts were in a similar predicament. The judiciary cast its lot in a civil-military tussle on the side of the national security state paradigm, which remains the most ominous development.
While there is nothing new about the Pakistani judiciary playing second fiddle to the army, in the present case they have dashed the hopes of large sections of their supporters who had expected a little better from the newly restored judiciary. There is still time for the lordships to undo the damage done to the cause of human rights in their assorted recent judgments. And while at it, they must throw the memo matter clear out of the window: it was not worth the paper it was written on.
( The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com. He tweets at http://twitter.com/mazdaki)
