Re: Justice Bhagwadas takes a stand..
http://www.chowk.com/articles/12989
Pakistani Judges - Read This Lawyer’s Oath
by Aisha Sarwari
Eight Judges refused to take oath under the unlawful Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) that Musharraf demanded and instead declared the emergency imposed by the head of a competitive authoritarian regime, unconstitutional.
Pakistan was created as a democracy and it can function
only as a democracy. Musharraf, however has seemingly created an official Orwellian state where everything is on it’s head: “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery and Ignorance is Strength.” Take for instance his choice to quote American Founding father Abraham Lincoln on state television when announcing his emergency, he chose not to quote the iconic President whose immortal words — “government of the people, by the people, for the people” — are part of America’s anthem to freedom, but stated that Lincoln “usurped” powers to protect the United States.
Even more disturbing was his overt use of Pakistan’s founding father’s portrait as a lifeline to gain him some respect. Yet, respect can only be granted to Musharraf by the people of Pakistan if they trusted him, not because he symbolically aligned himself with one of the most trustworthy and credible man in the history of South Asia.
Incorruptible and with the highest level of integrity, Muhammad Ali Jinnah spent his most of his life fighting the establishment, the British representatives from Lord Mountbatten to Willingdon and Wavell found Jinnah’s forthrightness downright arrogant and aggressive.
Whereas it remains, of course, to be seen whether the controversy involving the Pakistani courts will be the beginning of the end of this round of military rule in Pakistan, the blow that the Judiciary and the lawyers community has already given to the Musharraf administration, however, represents a significant limitation on authoritarian rule, including introducing a viable alternative ruler into the political process.
When democracy returns to Pakistan, the courts will be seen by historians as having been at the very center of the process, the legacy seed of which was planted by Mr. Jinnah, when he singled himself out to protest on the ruling by Justice Davar on Indian Nationalist leader Bal Gangadhar Tilak back in 1916. (AIR1916Bombay9)
After the Parsee judge ordered the imprisonment of the Indian leader for 6 years, the British government conferred knighthood upon the justice, clearly in what was a case of judicial corruption. Nonetheless the Bombay Bar suggested that Justice Davar celebrate the “honor” with a dinner party, the RSVP of which went to Mr. Jinnah among others.
He was most displeased at the invitation and proceeded to write a note on the circular calling to shame the Bombay Bar for celebrating knighthood of a judge who “did what the government wanted it to,” and by sending a “great patriot” to jail with a savage sentence.
Justice Davar sent for Mr. Jinnah upon reading the note and asked him “why would you write a note like this against me?” to which Mr. Jinnah said that he wrote it because it was “the truth.” Justice Davar proceeded to ask the proud lawyer how he had been treated in his court. Mr. Jinnah replied that he no matter how well he was treated the Justice’s court, he “cannot suppress” that he felt very strongly about the way he had tried Tilak’s case.
It is the life of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, that lets Pakistan map its democracy.
Musharraf has bought off the religious parties like the Jamat-e-Islami which find it’s roots in the same obscurantist forces of the pre-partition era. The same that choked the voices of democracy then by vocalizing the radical forces in the Islamic camp while silencing moderates like Jinnah. But given the largest student rally against the Jamat-e-Islami student wing this week in Punjab University, it is clear that the same forces Musharraf is aligned himself with find themselves alienated in Jinnah’s Pakistan.
Musharraf also tried to buy the land-grabbing feudal parties in the Punjab to fill is support base, but spineless as they are, their real loyalties are with the land that monies their supporters and a threat of displacing that control over the lower class can easily get the general to be high and dry.
Democracy, however, Musharraf has failed to buy because it is fathered in Pakistan by the man who faced up the world’s most powerful empire, and didn’t even blink. Try though he may to attribute inconsequential similarities, Musharraf cannot claim that the occasional drink or the love of dogs can put him up on the memory wall next to the founder.
Pakistan still yearns for a free system of governance and is largely a democracy, in spite of Musharraf and the military not because of Musharraf. It is because of this reason he is chronically dependent on the legitimacy vote of the judiciary.
Much like a colonized state as it was in pre-partition, Musharraf’s state also allows elections but rigs the rules, downs the media and stoops down to harassing journalists, lawyers, entrepreneurs and political leaders alike He will utilize the state security apparatus to ensure that no effective challenge arises to his rule.
The state of affairs in Pakistan has taken such a drastic turn that it took the children of the founding fathers to write a joint appeal to the autocrat on November 17th to step down and remove the martial law. They also recalled that while addressing the American people in February 1948, Jinnah had said: “Islam and its idealism have taught us democracy. It has taught us equality of men, justice and fair-play to everybody. We are inheritors of these glorious traditions.”
Referring to another speech on Criminal Law Emergency Powers Bill on Feb 6, 1919, they said Jinnah had declared “no man should lose his liberty without a judicial trial in accordance with accepted rules and evidence and procedure.”
One fails to understand how the growing need to associate with Mr. Jinnah leaves Musharraf little association with the ideals that the man stood for. Musharraf is ironically responsible for encouraging Zawar Hussain Zaidi, editor of the declassified Jinnah Papers, published by Oxford University Press. Musharraf was presented volumes of Jinnah Papers and thanked in appreciation of his work and for “lifting the spirit and devotion” of Mr. Zaidi’s colleagues “engaged in this national work of great importance.”
Pakistan’s judiciary has yet to rule on the numerous cases of judicial corruption under the Musharraf tenure, and the operation of military courts, signaling the judiciary’s subservience to the military and its lack of intention to act to uphold the constitution.
How can Musharraf claim to save Pakistan when there are more than 15,000 cases pending before the Supreme Court of Pakistan, over 3,500 other courts around Pakistan?
It was Mr. Jinnah who said, “The first observation that I would like to make is this: You will no doubt agree with me that the first duty of a government is to maintain law and order, so that the life, property and religious beliefs of its subjects are fully protected by the State.”
I would urge Musharraf to read Mr. Jinnah’s first observation again and for the judges who are due for the hearing in the case against the emergency in Pakistan, to re-read the Lawyer’s Oath.