The Ultimate Solution

Perhaps the greatest impediments in the progress and prosperity of the people of Pakistan can be classified as political illegitimacies. The political, judicial and constitutional crises that have plagued this nation are simply due to the intransigence of someone or the other.

The PPP has been screaming about the supremacy of the parliament which is quite a catchy slogan.  I would have supported the idea had it not been for clause 22 of the 18^th amendment to the constitution approved unanimously by the parliament which reads as follows:

22.

Substitution of Article 63A of the Constitution: In the Constitution, for Article 63A, the following shall be substituted, namely:- "63A. Disqualification on grounds of defection, etc. (1) If a member of a Parliamentary Party composed of a single political party in a House- (a) resigns from membership of his political party or joins another Parliamentary Party; or (b) votes or abstains from voting in the House contrary to any direction issued by the Parliamentary Party to which he belongs, in relations to- (i) election of the Prime Minister or the Chief Minister; or (ii) a vote of confidence or a vote of no-confidence; or (iii) a Money Bill or a Constitution (Amendment) Bill; he may be declared in writing by the Party Head to have defected from the political party, and the Head of the Parliamentary Party may forward a copy of the declaration to the Presiding Officer, and shall similarly forward a copy thereof to the member concerned: …………..

It turns the members of parliament into mere serfs of the party leaders. How can a parliament be supreme if its members do not have the right to exercise free will and their loyalties are to the party heads and not the people they represent?

The utter helplessness of the parliamentarians became manifest when the Contempt of Court Act – 2012 was introduced and approved within hours without any debate by a voice vote in which the nays were much louder than the ayes.  The same happened in both houses of parliament (national assembly and senate) by suspending the rules. What good is a parliament whose rules can be suspended and activated at will by the speaker on someone’s behest and any garbage can be enacted as law against everyone’s will? Even a pack of wild dogs would be more disciplined.

The current crisis really revolves around one issue ---- the reopening of cases against the incumbent president according to a supreme court verdict. A few dozen criminal cases including graft and money laundering done jointly with his ex-prime minister spouse (the late shaheed Benazir) were withdrawn under a defunct ordinance issued by ex-general Musharraf but not legitimized by the parliament.

 The supreme court has repeatedly asked the prime minister to write a letter to the Swiss courts to reopen the withdrawn $60 million case of graft and money laundering. The government is refusing to do so claiming that the president has constitutional immunity from legal proceedings.

In the circumstances there only two options:

1.       If the president is a decent person (not yet proven) he should voluntarily resign and end the crisis in national interest. These cases have been lingering for two decades already and he has the money and resources to drag them for another two decades at least.

2.       The parliament should impeach the president and remove his immunity so that the law may prevail and legal proceedings may be started. Failing this, the entire parliament will be guilty of obstructing the course of justice and may face disqualification by the supreme court on a citizens’ petition. The German precedent would come handy.

War on Justice

There is hot news that the PP-lead coalition government intends to introduce 2 new laws in the parliament and get them enacted within a few days.

The first of them is said to be a law that will legalize libel against judges and authorize ministers and civil servants to refuse to carryout orders of the superior judiciary passed in their judgments. Such a law would be an absurdity and tantamount to promoting lawlessness.

What is really needed is a law empowering anticorruption officials to question all judges, barristers, bureaucrats, members of parliament, ministers and even the prime minister and president in cases of graft and corruption at a high level.

The second law on the anvil is intended to allow half Pakistanis holding dual (additional foreign) nationalities to become members of parliament.  This would amount to converting Pakistan into a semi-colonial state and compromise its sovereignty and integrity.

The only decent and democratic way of solving Pakistan’s current politico-legal problems it to go for a general election on the basis of the contentious issues and legislate on the basis of a fresh mandate. But unfortunately in this part of the world people give up power only by one of two means – death or disgrace.

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