Adil Najam
The Lawyer’s Long March from Lahore to Islamabad is literally hours away as I write this. Arrests of activists continue and a number have just been arrested in Lahore. As if things were not complicated enough, the unseating of the Shahbaz Sharif government in the Punjab and subsequent political developments have added new fuel of Pakistan’s many political fires.
The Zardari government, already losing some important allies from within its own ranks, has gone all out to make sure that the Long March does not succeed. The Lawyer’s movement and Nawaz Sharif (for rather different reasons) are going all out to make sure that it becomes a game changer. In the next many hours we will begin to get clues about which it will be.
Meanwhile, there can be no better commentary about where we have been and come from on this then these clips from now blocked GEO TV. It shows before and after ‘power’ comments from Farooq Niaq – until recently the PPP’s Law Minister and now Speaker of the Senate (and, therefore, next in line to the Presidency).
The deniers of justice and equity have received a measure of determination and resolve from those who seek equal justice before the law.
Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
(Thanks WRC)
If true, this is no victory; it is the first step towards the long march of equity and justice.
Democracy means nothing without free and independent judiciary.
Justice means nothing when it is not expedient and commonly available.
None of this means anything, if the archaic laws, procedures and rules are not thrown in heap of history’s dust bin.
No nation has prospered, if it denies justice to its people. People can live without many things, but not without justice.
The real question now is, as Adil says, what happens after the CJ is restored. What will he do? What will the government do? What will opposition do?
I hope whatever happens will leave the country strengthened and not weakened.
This is a great day for Pakistan if it happens.
There is a great way for the military to absolve itself of prior sins and promote democracy in the country. And that is to become the guarantor of a free judiciary.
The military sees itself as the sole functioning institution of the country in time of crises and this image, which may arguably be true, has not helped it much. This has only forced it to put itself in situations where it eventually fails and brings disrepute upon itself and causes more problems in the country than it solves. It is certainly in the military’s long term interest to help develop other institutions and a free judiciary seems to be logical starting point.
Judiciary has a critical role to play in the maintenance of law and order and the military is supposed to be the force of last resort in these matters as well. So the two institutions joining hands in this sphere makes all the sense in the world.
The only downside for the military would be that an independent judiciary will never accept a complete military takeover of the country. This, I hope the military has learned by now, is actually in its own interest as well as in the interest of the country.
News of unconditional restoration of deposed judiciary if true
will be a great victory for people of Pakistan.
2 Nov. Position of all judges is restored. (per Geo News – source is Ch. Nisar Ali Khan who was informed by the PM).