Interesting times ahead in Pakistani politics. There appears to be warnings galore - even before the new govt has taken shape.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008/02/25/story_25-2-2008_pg3_1
Avoid bluster as well as hair-splitting
The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president, Mr Aitzaz Ahsan, warned the leaderships of the PPP and PMLN Saturday “to get the deposed judges reinstated quickly or face a movement themselves”.
He has given the two mainstream parties the task of reinstating the judges before March 8 if they don’t want to face a Long March of lawyers and civil society activists to Islamabad against them.
Since the official results of the 2008 elections are not yet in, and the National Assembly may not have convened by this deadline, the Long March could be a “pre-emptive” show of strength and a demonstration of “public threat” to public representatives.
This “interesting” (for want of a less provocative word) threat has not been lost on some other eminent members of the legal community. The chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), Ms Asma Jehangir, thinks that the lawyers following Mr Ahsan “are overplaying their hand in seeking confrontation with the government before the convening of the new parliament”. Her reaction to the Long March — coinciding with the first anniversary of the sacking of the chief justice of Pakistan last year — was of dismay: “I’m disheartened by the fact that before parliament is even consolidated, they are being expected to perform miracles”.
Earlier, Justice (Retd) Tariq Mahmood, an under-arrest leader of the lawyers’ movement, had criticised Mr Ahsan’s aggressive strategy and advised that “the issue of judiciary must be solved with care and deliberation and not by rashly setting back the movement by placing the political leadership under too much pressure”. From this it is clear that the lawyers’ movement is risking loss of support from many right-minded citizens. Instead of a strategy of attack, Mr Ahsan might therefore be advised to adopt a less challenging or adventurous course of action for his highly charged community.
No doubt, there is bluster in the lawyers’ movement; but there is a lot of legal hair-splitting too. And the latter disease has also spread to a political community that is not famous for its fondness for the legal argument. The lawyers say that President Musharraf dismissed over 60 judges through an army chief’s PCO without recourse to the Supreme Judicial Council which is the only institution through which the judges could be sacked. But then how can they want the new set of judges, who have replaced them, to be removed from the courts through an administrative order? The Emergency Plus order of November 3, validated by these judges, is considered by the lawyers to be invalid. But this argument springs a new surprise. If the Emergency Plus order of November 3 is invalid because it was validated by an invalid Supreme Court, then we come face to face with the new National Assembly which will take oath under a Constitution with the new Article 270AAA added to it. Will such an Assembly be valid? Clearly the answer is no, if you go by the argument presented by the lawyers’ movement. This point of law will come up soon and cause some flutter in the political dovecots when the caretaker government presents to the new MNAs copies of the Constitution under which to take their oath of office. The new volume is to incorporate all the amendments introduced by President Pervez Musharraf during his emergency rule.
Out of the political parties represented in the new National Assembly it is the PMLN which will be most tempted to refuse to take oath in order to strengthen the argument in favour of forcing political and legal changes through non-constitutional means. This will be a repeat of the drama after the 2002 elections when the MNAs were asked to take oath over a constitutional text containing the Legal Framework Order (LFO). After many MNAs refused to swear, the speaker leaned on a subterfuge and declared that his copy of the Constitution did not contain the offending clause. Later, the same house accepted the 17th Amendment nullifying the manifestoes of PMLN and MMA with its provisions.
In the eyes of many, the Supreme Court of Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was cleansed of the blot of the PCO because of the validating effect of the 17th Amendment. Yet there are many who think of the 17th Amendment as yet another mark of the parliament’s humiliating submission to a ruling general, just like the 8th Amendment which later became such an article of faith with the rightwing parties of the country, including the PML then led by Mr Nawaz Sharif. Not taking oath after the 2008 elections because the Supreme Court has granted validity to the November 3 decisions, will jeopardise the act of having taken part in these elections too. The moment you ask the politicians “why take part in elections if you think the order under which they are being held is invalid”, the answer is “we don’t want to give the wrong forces a chance to win legal space”. The same thing is true today. So the best option is to take oath and prevent the “wrong forces” from taking all the important decisions that you are legally bound to take.